Pierce Manufacturing

Pierce Manufacturing, Inc.

Type	Subsidiary of Oshkosh
Industry	Trucks & Other Vehicles
Founded	1913
Headquarters	Appleton, Wisconsin, U.S.A.
Key people	Jim Johnson, President Tom Adrians, CFO
Products	Fire and Rescue Vehicles
Revenue	US$107.8 million (2005)
Number of employees	780 (2005)
Parent	Oshkosh Corporation
Website	www.piercemfg.com

Office at headquarters

Factory

Pierce Manufacturing is an Appleton, Wisconsin based manufacturer of custom fire and rescue apparatus and a wholly owned subsidiary of Oshkosh Corporation. Pierce was acquired by Oshkosh in 1996. The company was originally founded in 1913 by Humphrey Pierce and his son Dudley as the Pierce Auto Body Works Inc., and concentrated on building custom truck bodies for the Ford Model T. From the 1960s to the early 1980s, Pierce was primarily known for building custom bodies on commercial and other manufacturer's custom chassis, and was considered an OEM.

Although the Arrow name was used for their first custom chassis which debuted in 1979, the company has no affiliation with George N. Pierce's famous Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company of Buffalo, New York, which operated from 1901 to 1938. However, the Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company coincidentally supplied 8- and 12-cylinder engines to Seagrave for use in their fire apparatus. These engines continued to be made even after Pierce-Arrow ceased operation in 1938. Seagrave continued to deliver fire apparatus with the "Pierce-Arrow" V-12 until 1970.

Throughout the years, Pierce has had partnerships with various other manufacturers, notably when it came to aerial devices (they now engineer and build all their own aerial devices in-house). Such aerial manufacturers included Snorkel, Pitman, Aerial Innovations (AI), Ladder Towers Incorporated (LTI), Smeal, Bronto Skylift and Nova Quintech (whose assets Pierce/Oshkosh acquired in 1997). In addition to their main facilities in Wisconsin, they also have facilities in Bradenton, Florida. The Florida facility is a manufacturing site for the Contender and Responder line of apparatus, as well as a refurbishment center.

Innovations

Pierce is noted for leading the way in fire apparatus innovations, including:

First custom tilt cab (Dash, 1984) and custom split-tilt cab (Lance, 1985) in the industry
Command Zone fully multiplexed chassis and aerial devices (1996)
TAK-4 independent front suspension (2001)
Side Roll Protection System side airbags (2003)
Front airbags (2006)
PUC (2007)

Products

Custom Chassis

Current

Arrow XT (2003–current)
Impel (2006–current)
Quantum II (2005–current)
Saber (1992–current)
Velocity (2006–current)
Dash CF (2011-current)
Enforcer (2014-current)

Discontinued

Arrow (1980–2002)
Dash (1984–1999)
Dash D-8000 (1988–1992)
Dash 2000 (1999–2007)
Enforcer (2000–2007)(Reintroduced in 2014)
Javelin (1990–1993)
Lance (1985–1993)
Lance II (1993–1999)
Lance 2000 (1999–2007)
Quantum (1995–2004)
Contender custom (1999–2010)

Commercial chassis

Suburban (????–????)
Contender Commercial (1999–current)
Responder (?-1998)(Reissued 2008–current)

Apparatus

Rearmount and midmount steel aerial ladders and quints
Rearmount aluminum aerial ladders and quints
Rearmount and midmount steel aerial platforms and quints
Rearmount aluminum aerial platforms
Tractor drawn steel aerial ladders and quints
Telescoping and/or articulating water tower booms
Standard, rescue, and heavy duty rescue midship mount pumpers
Rear mount rescue pumpers
Mini pumpers
Pumper tankers/tenders and elliptical tankers/tenders
Wildland/brush pumpers
Walk-in and non-walk-in heavy rescues
Homeland security vehicles
Command and communication vehicles
Foam systems
Fire Patrol Trucks

Gallery

Engine 55 of the Greenfields Fire Co, PA. 1999 Pierce Quantum Pumper
6-Tower of the Hillcrest Fire Co. #1, NY. 2002 Pierce Dash 2000 95' Midmount Aerial Platform Quint
Reserve Engine 249 of the Clay Fire Territory, IN. 1985 Pierce Dash Pumper
Reserve Ladder 18 serving the Lexington Fire Department, KY. Pierce Arrow 105' X-Ladder 1
Aerial 1 serving the Jackson Fire Department, KY. 1988 Pierce Arrow 105' canopy cab
Engine 14 serving the Crab Orchard Fire Department, KY. 2006 Pierce Contender custom cab
Engine 30 serving the Stanton Fire Department, KY. 2002 Pierce Contender-Freightliner crew cab
Engine 2 serving the Jackson Fire Department, KY. 2003 Pierce Contender-Kenworth single cab
Engine 10 serving the Morehead Fire Department, KY. 2005 Pierce Enforcer with Roto Ray
Engine 8 serving the Morehead Fire Department, KY. 1993 Pierce Responder-International crew cab
Engine 3 serving the West Liberty Fire Department, KY. 1993 Pierce Responder-International single cab
Engine 7 serving the Morehead Fire Department, KY. 1979 Pierce-Hendrickson custom cab

References

Shapiro, L. Aerial Fire Trucks, Motorbooks International, June 2002. ISBN 0-7603-1065-3
Company History

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pierce vehicles.