Maxim Motor Company

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Maxim, known variously as Maxim Motor Company, the Maxim Fire Apparatus Company, the Maxim Motor Division of Seagrave Corporation and FWD/Seagrave Corporation, Maxim Industries, Maxim Motors Company Inc. and Maxim Inc. throughout its lifetime, was a fire apparatus manufacturer located in Middleborough, Massachusetts.
==History==
=== Early Years ===
Carlton Maxim (1859-1935) opened a car sales & repair company in Middleborough in the early 1900s. He was a longtime member of the Middleborough Fire Department, having joined in 1889; and rose through the ranks, eventually becoming the chief of the department in 1920 (before resigning in 1929 to focus more on the company). He was also a skilled carpenter, having owned his own woodworking business for several years prior. In 1912, he was dissatisfied with fire truck purchased by the Middleborough FD, and in 1914, when they were looking for another new truck, Carlton thought he could do better. Using an E.R. Thomas Co. "Flyer" chassis, Carlton built a truck that sported a 4-cylinder engine, pneumatic tires, chain drive, 1500' of 2 & a half inch hose, and two ground ladders (one 18' extension ladder and one 12' roof ladder). The truck, dubbed the Maxim Model "N"; was a big success and soon, more orders followed. 
In 1915, the company (which at this point, was still known as the Middleborough Auto Exchange) formally changed their to the Maxim Fire Apparatus Company. In their early days, Maxim offered two models of fire apparatus (using the Thomas Flyer chassis, with Maxim-built bodies): the Type F-4, and the Type F-6. Both were identical in terms of equipment, but the F-6 had a 6-cylinder motor, as opposed to the F-4's 4-cylinder. Maxim continued using chassis from E.R. Thomas until 1916, when they introduced their first custom chassis. Another venture Maxim undertook in 1916 was the manufacture of commercial trucks, which only lasted a few years, and were mostly sold to local companies in the southeastern Massachusetts area. In 1919, Maxim officially incorporated as the Maxim Motor Company, and as a result, started hiring more people & issuing stock to local businesses to accrue capital funds. 
A redesigned line of trucks was launched in 1921 (the C and M Series) and the company prospered, with the manufacturing facility (an old streetcar barn) also undergoing an expansion. In 1923, Maxim sent an entire fleet of M-Models all the way to Tokyo, Japan, where they remained in service for several decades. In 1928, Maxim introduced the new B-Series, and subsequently retired the older C & M Series. Maxim weathered the Great Depression, partly by building on commercial chassis, and like most apparatus builders, prospered again during the Second World War and in the boom years after. In 1938, Maxim again tried their hand at manufacturing commercial vehicles, with slightly more success than the last time, with a full line of truck bodies being offered (for a period of a few years). A year later, in 1939, Maxim built & delivered their first metal aerial ladder, a 65' unit to the Advance Base Depot, a naval base in Davisville, Rhode Island. 
During World War II, in addition to building apparatus for the military; Maxim was also one of the companies that built large scores of Civil-Defense trailer pumpers, which were then distributed to towns & cities around the country. Called the "Emergency Defense Trailer" by Maxim, they were more affectionately known as "Blitz Buggies". They featured 500, 600, or 750gpm pumps, all powered by Ford engines. One unique vehicle also constructed during this time period was a prototype for a motorcycle-based, quick-response type fire apparatus. Using a three-wheeled Indian motorcycle, Maxim used a body from one of their Emergency Defense trailers, and mounted a 500gpm pump on it (powered by an auxiliary 85hp engine, also from the trailers). This design ultimately stayed a prototype, and most likely never entered full production; but one has to wonder what would have happened if it did. In 1942, Maxim again expanded their facilities by purchasing another property down the street from their main factory. This new building, a former car dealership, was turned into the repairs & service department, freeing up space in the main plant for construction. 
===Mid-Century===
After the war, Maxim released their newest line of apparatus in 1946, having been in development on & off for the past two years. These trucks had no common name shared between them, but instead had different individual names to delineate each sub-model. Available with 500, 750, 1,000 or 1,250gpm pumps, and/or 65', 75', and 85' ladders; departments had many features & options to choose from, with several cab, body, pump panel, and compartment styles. The trucks also featured Hercules gas engines, Spicer transmissions, and Hale pumps. Maxim also entered into an agreement with a new distributor on the west coast, L.N. Curtis & Sons, in Oakland, California. As part of the agreement, Maxim would send incomplete chassis to Curtis, who in turn would send them to the Seattle-based George Heiser Company to build the bodies and finish the trucks, with many going into service across the Pacific Northwest. Even though Maxim had built their first metal aerial in 1939, a full entry into the aerial ladder market wouldn't follow until 1947. Maxim's ladders were quite well-renowned at this point, and soon, other manufacturers (like Crown, Mack and Ward LaFrance) began to use them on their own apparatus. Most of Maxim's sales were in the northeast US, but deliveries were also made to the Seattle Fire Department and several departments in Indiana. As a side note, it is believed that all of Crown's ladder trucks (30 in total) were built using Maxim aerials, as Crown did not build their own. 
At some point during the 1950's, Maxim introduced a new commercial-chassis based rig, called the Model VX. Utilizing the cabin & engine compartment from an International Harvester R-Series (but swapping out the IH grille for a Maxim one), the VX wasn't terribly popular, but still managed to sell a few units. In 1952, Maxim acquired to rights to distribute the German-made Magirus aerial ladders in the US, in addition to their own lineup of aerials. Magirus offered short-wheelbase 100' or 146' models, all rear-mounted, and featuring a lifting capacity of up to 4,000lbs. They slow were slow to catch on at first, but quickly gained prominence in the coming years; with the Philadelphia Fire Department being a large user of them. By 1953, sales of Maxim's line of airport crash-rescue trucks (introduced a couple years earlier) were also picking up, with units going to several major airports in the northeast. 
Maxim was running strong at this point, boasting a 4.8 acre, 70,000sq ft factory featuring, among others; design offices & facilities for staff, three assembly areas, woodworking & machine shops, a sheet metal shop, and a paint booth, with an annual revenue of around $1.5 million (adjusted for inflation, that would be about $16.8 million in 2023). Maxim had many loyal employees, with some spending their whole careers there, lasting several decades. Family run for decades up until then, the Seagrave Corporation acquired Maxim in 1956; and the name was changed to the Maxim Motor Division. With the acquisition by Seagrave bringing new ideas to the company, the designers and engineers at Maxim went to the drawing board to think up a new chassis, resulting in the introduction of what would become Maxim's most well-known trucks; the F-Model cab-over in 1958, and the S-Model conventional in 1960. The F-Model was a completely new design, while the S-Model took design cues from Maxims of the 1940s & 50s. Around this time, Maxim also started building Snorkel aerial trucks, using devices supplied by the Pitman Company, or sending off the incomplete trucks to have the bodies built & platforms mounted by Pierce. Another vehicle that Maxim commonly built were brush breakers, a local Cape Cod specialty. Although they did not design them (that was handled by the fire departments themselves, in a practice going back decades), they produced several trucks for local departments. 
In the 1970s, Maxim debuted their take on a small, industrial firefighting vehicle - the Mini Max. A bit larger than a golf cart, it was designed for use in places such as large factories, shopping malls, parking garages, convention centers, and sports stadiums; it carried a 150lb dry-chemical unit, a 20lb dry-chemical extinguisher, a 2 1/2 lb pressurized water extinguisher, a 2-section, 12ft extension ladder, two axes, and a SCBA unit. It also featured up to 6 compartments on the body, and the ability to be started remotely, and drive itself (with lights and sirens going) to a predetermined location within a complex (for safety, if it encountered any obstacle or obstruction, it would stop and sound its horn, not stopping until the obstruction was cleared). Despite how unique and innovative the Mini-Max was, only two units were ever reported sold (with one going to, fittingly enough, a manufacturer of golf carts). 
=== Later Years ===
By now, Maxim's day-to-day operations were running quite smoothly; with bare truck frames coming into the main assembly building, receiving a drive train, pump, and plumbing, before proceeding off to the next area, to get the bodywork built, the whole truck painted, then going to get chrome elements - and any finishing touches - applied, and finally getting pump & road tested. Maxim's production process was similar to an assembly line, but differed in that - since their trucks were all hand-built, they were completed in stages; with a small group of employees building the first parts of the truck, before handing off to the next crew, and so on and so forth. 
Yet another specialty product that Maxim offered were foam pumpers. Built on the F-Model chassis, they prominently featured a roof turret, along with several smaller undercarriage nozzles under the bumper. Utilizing a Rockwood foam system (with pump-and-roll capability), the trucks were reportedly so powerful, that the operator had to keep the brake pedal pressed down to the floor with both feet; just to keep the truck from rolling away. Business was booming for Maxim, but their good fortune would not last long. 
In the late 1970s, inflation and economic instability were causing troubled times for many industries, including fire apparatus manufacturers. Due to this, Seagrave, who had owned Maxim for the past 20 years, announced it would sell the company to North Street Associates; a group of investors from Greenwich, Connecticut. The name of the company was changed once again, this time to Maxim Industries. Shortly after the acquisition, the company found itself in some financial strife; and many employees disliked the new owners, feeling they had no place in the fire truck business. To try and remedy this, the company applied for (and received) a loan from the Middleborough Trust Company for $900,000 ($5.2 million in 2023). 
These issues came to a head in January 1976, when an article published by the Boston Globe detailed the woes that four Massachusetts cities (Arlington, Salem, Somerville, and Wakefield) had in acquiring a new truck. The four cities had signed contracts for new trucks, but Maxim, hit with a shortage of supplies & materials, coupled with rocketing prices for engine components; attempted to pass on the price increase to their customers. Naturally, the four cities weren't having it, and they took Maxim to court. Arlington, Salem, and Wakefield, desperate for new apparatus, settled out of court; but Somerville was successful in getting an injunction filed against them. The order was to prevent Maxim from selling the city three previous, inferior quality trucks that they had ordered. Eventually, both parties reached an agreement where, Maxim would build the three original trucks that Somerville had ordered, at the originally quoted prices, by a certain date; or risk an $850 fine for each day past the deadline that the trucks were not completed. 
=== Financial Troubles and First Closure ===
The years rolled on, and Maxim was still on shaky footing, but trying to regain it. In the late 1970s, the company's two models (the F and the S, respectively) received new nicknames in the marketing world: the F-Model was dubbed the Marauder (presumably no relation to Seagrave's later introduced chassis of the same name, but, given the former's prior ownership of the latter, who's to say); and the S-Model was dubbed the Yankee. They also offered a commercial-chassied rig called the Blazer. 
North Street Associates also owned Ward LaFrance, and some production was consolidated between the two companies. Even though owned by the same parent company, the two were still technically separate, although some similarities started popping up after some redesigns in the late 1970s. Both companies started sharing parts, resulting in both Ward LaFrance's Ambassador and Maxim's F-Model looking effectively identical from the front windshield to the back of the cab. Both Ward and Maxim used the same doors, windows, and other design elements; with one particularly recognizable feature being a small teardrop-shaped window directly behind the front doors, present on both the Ambassador and the F-Model of the era. Some of the production of Maxim's trucks (mainly pumpers, the aerials were still made in Middleborough) was also outsourced to the Ward LaFrance plant in Elmira, and when customers found out about that; they weren't happy, fearing that Maxim's usual high quality standards were being compromised. Some sources at the time speculated that the reason for splitting the production was to try and weaken the employees' union. No matter the cause, the move alone reduced the workforce from 200 people working three shifts, down to 100 people working just one shift. And as a further result of the move, orders starting slowing down, resulting in a reduced cash flow for the company; and eventually, layoffs. 
Despite all of the companies' financial struggles, reduced orders, and split production, the management kept hiring more workers; despite talk going around from the current workers about more layoffs, the inability to cash checks, and the general state of the company. Ward LaFrance closed down in 1979, and many of their unfinished orders were to Maxim to complete. One day in January 1981, two workers were delivering a truck to Providence, RI when an agent of the Internal Revenue Service met them and informed them that he was now the new owner of the truck, because Maxim had not paid its' payroll taxes in several years. They owed at least $500,000, on top of the $900,000 from the loan they had taken out several years earlier, and it was clear Maxim was in dire straits. On January 26, 1981, Maxim laid off their 100 employees, locked the doors, and started Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. They had run out of money, and could no longer afford to buy parts or pay their employees, and their parent company (North Street Associates) became the subject of an FBI investigation into any potential wrongdoing (which, they were later found to be innocent). 
=== Resurrection and Second Closure ===
In a bid to save the company, a former Maxim employee (David G. Deane) and two other people (brothers Joseph and Gary Castanino) came forward, and the bank agreed to sell the assets of the company ($720,000 in total) to them. David was a 39-veteran of Maxim, being a sales representative and dealer; as well as the owner of his own fire equipment supply business in Springfield, MA. On November 2nd, 1981, Maxim reopened, changing their name once more (back to the Maxim Motor Company Inc.), rehiring 55 of the 100 laid-off employees, and starting preparing bids for new apparatus. Within three months, the brothers Castanino had left, leaving David solely in charge of the company. Despite a rocky start, Maxim was once again up and running, with many executive officers of the company pulling double duty to make sure things ran smoothly. Production was slow initially, but by 1983, Maxim was churning out trucks at a steady rate of 23 per year (a far cry from their heyday, but a respectable amount, considering all they had went through). 
By 1985, the production line (with 38 assembly workers) was able to up the rate of construction of new trucks to 48 per year, still keeping to the rigorous standards and high quality Maxim was known for. They no longer built their own pumps or drive trains; but everything else was still custom designed and built from the ground up, by hand. It took about 3,000 hours to build an aerial, and about 1,300 hours to build a pumper; with the cost of an aerial being around $200,000, and the cost of a pumper being around $125,000. Despite a strong comeback, Maxim wasn't out of the woods quite yet, unable to rehire the other half of the initially laid-off employees, and with debt still hanging over the company's head. They were hoping to develop a new line of heavy-duty aerial ladders, but no investors were willing to take the risk. And to make matters worse, the economy was once again in a downturn. Unable to survive in turbulent times once more, Maxim was shuttered and foreclosed on in 1985, but they didn't stay down for long, coming back later that same year; being bought by a businessman from Andover, MA - Harley W. "Skip" Waite. 
Harley was the owner of the company Eastern Technologies, as well as other companies in Massachusetts and Wisconsin that manufactured fuel tankers and high-tech precision-machined parts. With promising new ownership, Maxim's future looked bright once again. In 1986, a new pumper rolled out of their long-time factory in Middleborough, which was fitting given how it was the last truck to do so, and was heading for the Middleborough Fire Department. In a bid to improve products and services, the company was temporarily relocated to Taunton, MA in 1986, before moving back to to a brand-new factory in Middleborough in 1987. The factory was 60,000 square feet large, and chock full of the latest equipment and technology; such as: a KWB 60-foot downdraft paint booth, 5-ton bridge cranes, pump and aerial testing facilities, computer-aided-design technology, and plenty of parts for trucks. But, the fire apparatus industry had become very competitive; so to help the company keep up, they partnered up with a subdivision (UTDC) of a large Montreal-based engineering firm (Lavelin), who invested $11 million dollars in the company to help with production and design. 
=== Third & Final Closure, Legacy ===
With the new factory, came some changes - the F-Model was redesigned a third time, sporting a redesigned front (called the V-front or V-cab), lower height, and overall newer construction (such as a fully enclosed cab, and being made out of aluminum, instead of steel). The S-Model was discontinued (in 1987) after being in production for the past 27 years, but in its' place, Maxim introduced a new model; known as the "Contour" cab, based off of a Pemfab cab/chassis. They also joined forces with RK Manufacturing (the precursor to RK Aerials) to introduce a line of heavy-duty aerial ladders in 1989 (RK's introduction into the fire apparatus market, as it turned out). The ladders were available with a 109-foot vertical reach, a 400lb tip load, a pre-piped master stream, a remote monitor, and individual outrigger controls. 
A unique, one-off product that Maxim made in 1989 were a pair of pumpers for the Massachusetts Fire Academy. These two trucks were fairly standard, but one key difference was the pump panel: instead of being made out of aluminum like usual, the pump panels on these two trucks were made out of clear plastic, with color-coded plumbing to show the new recruits how it worked. In 1988, Harley Waite sold his remaining stakes in the company to UTDC/Lavelin, making them the sole owners. Once yet another new company owned Maxim, they started going on a tear, ordering vast quantities of new parts (much more than was actually needed, reportedly), despite another slow period of orders. To further complicate matters, numerous labor disputes between the workers and the management took place, resulting in several strikes; as well as a couple legal battles over ladder & chassis design. 
Sensing the messy, disorganized state the company was in, UTDC themselves decided to sell Maxim, and said if a buyer wasn't found; they would close the plant down. This turned out to be true, because, after a long and tumultuous history; Maxim finally went out of business for good on December 15th, 1989. Several other fire apparatus manufacturers at the time flirted with the prospect of buying the company, but nothing ultimately panned out. Greenwood Emergency Vehicles, a fire truck and ambulance dealer in North Attleborough, MA, eventually bought the rights to Maxim in the late 2000's; and has since built a few brush and tanker trucks under the Maxim name. 
==Custom Chassis==
*Model 6TN5 - 1917-1921
*Model WHL6 - 1917-1921
*Model T6 - 1917-1921
*C-Series - 1921-1928
*M-Series - 1921-1928
*B-Series - 1928-1932
*H-Model - 1932-ca.1946
* R-Model - 1932-ca.1946
*Y-Model - 1932-ca.1946
*Model VX - 195?-196?
*F-Model - 1958-1989
*S-Model - 1960-1987
*
== See also==
Departments operating Maxim apparatus
==Sources==
*Smith, Howard T. Maxim Fire Apparatus Photo History. Hudson, WI: Iconografix, 2004 ISBN 9781583881118
*McCall, Walter M.P. Illustrated Encyclopedia of American Fire Engine Manufacturers. Hudson, WI: Iconografix, 2009 ISBN 9781583882528
*Company promotional literature and advertising
*Local newspapers
*Middleborough Historical Society 
Category:Defunct American fire apparatus manufacturers