GREG TURNER
Boston Herald

A recession two decades ago extinguished fire truck maker Maxim Motor Co., but now the once-dominant and revered Bay State brand is making a comeback.

Greenwood Emergency Vehicles, an ambulance and fire engine dealer in North Attleboro, has developed a modern Maxim pumper it believes will be attractive to fire chiefs across the region. A full-scale launch of the locally built fire truck is expected this spring.

The brand was founded in 1914 by Middleboro firefighter Carlton Maxim, who wanted to build a better fire truck. Maxim's finished product sparked interest at other fire departments; the company bloomed until the 1970s - even turning business away at times of great demand - and became New England's top seller.

``Every parade you go to (now) there are Maxim fire trucks being driven by collectors. It's a brand that the newest rookie firefighter has heard of one way or another,'' said Tim O'Neill, Greenwood's president. ``It's really a respected old brand that fell on hard times.''

O'Neill's company was just gaining steam when Maxim started sputtering in the late 1980s amid an overabundance of fire truck manufacturers and plunging orders from budget-slashing cities and towns. Burning through cash and churning through a series of ownership changes and management shake-ups, Maxim was ultimately liquidated in December 1989.

Maxim was history until Greenwood resurrected the brand a few years ago for a foam-spraying fire truck built on a Ford chassis that the company exported to the tiny, private Caribbean island of Mustique.

But that was only a small-scale, low-key revival of Maxim.

O'Neill registered a trademark for ``Maxim'' in the fire engine category on Oct. 7, 2008, got his graphics man to ``clean up'' the Maxim logo to make it more modern, and set to work designing a pumper with all the features firefighters are looking for. The new Maxim will cost $350,000 to $450,000.

``I hope (O'Neill) does well,'' said Howard Smith, a Cambridge firefighter and president of the Massachusetts Antique Fire Apparatus Association. The Maxim descendant's family owns five old Maxim fire trucks. ``Obviously he's going to capitalize on the Maxim brand. It still has name appeal.''

Greenwood picked stainless steel for its Maxim pumper - it can't use aluminum, the most common material for fire engines, because doing so would break the company's franchise agreement with E-One, the Florida-based fire truck manufacturer. Greenwood is one of the nation's top E-One dealers.

Maxim is re-emerging with the region mired in another economic downturn. ``It's been terrible. Everyone took a year off from buying fire trucks,'' he said. ``We couldn't have picked a worse time to launch a new truck.''

Sales of new fire trucks plummeted by 75 percent, but the dropoff hasn't fazed O'Neill, 55, of Seekonk. ``It's going to come back. Everyone always needs new fire trucks.''

Greenwood has survived the recession because of its service business, and by refurbishing the aging-but-still-able apparatus of penny-pinching municipalities who have put off purchases of new fire trucks.

``(A used truck) could be here for 10 minutes, 10 days or three months, depending on the job,'' O'Neill said as he walked by the Boston Fire Department's Ladder 16, a year-old truck that was in the shop recently for a steering piston repair. ``This is really cradle-to-grave service.''

Each year, Greenwood sells about 50 E-One fire trucks and 50 Horton ambulances, which are made in Columbus, Ohio. Most of Greenwood's customers are within an hour's drive of North Attleboro; it has a regional office in Brunswick, Maine, and will soon open another sales outlet in central Connecticut.

The plan for Maxim is to sell 10 to 15 pumpers in 2010 and try to ramp up sales to 30 to 40 trucks annually after five years. ``That would almost double our fire truck business just on this one product,'' O'Neill said, adding that the 80-employee Greenwood will hire workers as the business grows.

``When we started (Greenwood) in 1979, Maxim was our biggest competitor. They were the most entrenched, established brand name in New England,'' O'Neill said. ``Who would have thought that 30 years later we'd be sitting here making Maxim trucks?''

Copyright 2009 Boston Herald Inc.
December 14, 2009