Curtis-Heiser

The George Heiser Body Company is an American truck body fabricator, paint and repair service located in Seattle, Washington. The company's roots go back to 1908 as the Motor Sheet Metal Works manufacturing sheet metal automobile parts. The company had a long association with nearby Seattle based Kenworth trucks manufacturing body parts, truck cabs and bus bodies. 
The company built fire apparatus from the 1940s until 1980, much of it in association with L.N. Curtis using the Curtis-Heiser name. 
==History==
In the 1940s the company built several fire apparatus bodies for Kenworth. 
In 1948, L.N. Curtis & Sons, a large west coast fire equipment dealer began a relationship with the company. Over the next 32 years, most of the apparatus built by the George Heiser Body Company would be done in association with L.N. Curtis using the Curtis-Heiser name. In addition, Curtis (as a dealer for Maxim), would send over incomplete chassis from Maxim's factory in Massachusetts, to have the bodies built on them by Heiser. In 1980, both companies stopped producing fire apparatus. Curtis-Heiser apparatus was frequently built on a Kenworth heavy truck chassis. 
The company had many local customers including the Seattle Fire Department, who purchased around 30 Kenworth-based pieces of fire apparatus between 1950 and the early 1970s.
==See also==
Departments operating Curtis-Heiser apparatus
==External Links ==
*George Heiser Body Company
*A history of the George Heiser Body Company at Coachbuilt
== Sources ==
*Sorenson, Wayne and Wood, Donald F. Motorized Fire Apparatus of the West 1900-1960. Polo, IL: Transportation Trails 1991. ISBN 9780933449114
*McCall, Walter M.P. Illustrated Encyclopedia of American Fire Engine Manufacturers. Hudson, WI: Iconografix, 2007. ISBN 9781583882528
*Smith, Howard T. Maxim Fire Apparatus Photo History. Hudson, WI: Iconografix, 2004. ISBN 9781583881118
Category:Defunct American fire apparatus manufacturers