Vintage fire-fighting equipment featured at Charlotte AutoFair

A hot-rodded 1944 Mack fire truck street rod known as the Black Mack will be featured in a special display of firefighting vehicles April 7-10 at the Pennzoil AutoFair at Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina.

The firefighting display, presented by Vintage Fire Truck & Equipment magazine, includes a 1922 Ford that has served the Farmland (Indiana) Fire Department since it was new; a tiny Scat emergency truck designed to reach fires in crowded buildings; specialized fire units built on an International Harvester Scout and a Ford Bronco; and two trucks that served Kings Mountain, North Carolina, in the 1930s.

“Our readers really like it when we feature rare and unusual machines like what we are bringing to AutoFair,” Jack Harrison, full-time firefighter and editor of VFT&E, said in a news release. “We want to show the public that there is a whole world of fire equipment beyond just the fire engine and ladder truck.”

The AutoFair also will feature various interactive displays, including the Fire Safety House hosted by the local Concord Fire Department.

The “Black Mack” went from fighting fires in North Riverside, Illinois, to smoking rubber after Precision Designs of Denver, Colorado, did a custom steel frame, heavily modifying the all-steel body and installed a V10 engine from a Dodge Viper. The engine, souped-up to produce 600 horsepower, is linked to a Dodge four-speed automatic taken from a Ram SRT-10 sport truck.

The Mack B rides on an airbagged suspension and a unique set of 24-inch polished aluminum American Force Wheels. The Dodge rear-axle assembly had to be narrowed by 14 inches to fit between the wide rear tires. Dodge truck disc brakes also were installed.

The truck’s former owners, Roger and Rhonda Brown, chose the black color with gold-left stripes to honor the 343 firefighters who died in the line of duty during the 9/11 attacks.

The truck currently is owned by Don Philipot and will be making its East Coast debut at the AutoFair, which will include more than 50 car club displays and more than 10,000 vendor spaces as well a 1,500 vehicles on sale in the car corral that rings the 1.5-mile speedway.