Bringing it on home: Retired firefighter and auto shop owner restore vintage fire truck for New York fire company

A retired Elgin firefighter and a Palatine auto repair shop owner have teamed up to restore the front of a New York fire company’s 1970s vintage truck.

It took two years for John Tobin, who began his career as a Palatine volunteer firefighter, and Danny Ahlgrim, owner of A & A Body Shop in Palatine, to complete the restoration in time for the 25th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001.

Earlier this week, Tobin hauled the remnant of the apparatus from Illinois to its original home at a fire company on Staten Island.

A friend alerted Tobin two years ago that the truck was sitting in the yard of a fire truck dealer in Shorewood. They were cutting it up for scrap, and the friend asked Tobin if he would be interested in it for parts.

“I went down and got the cab and brought it home in a trailer,” said Tobin, who lives in Durand, Illinois.

Tobin and Ahlgrim share a special bond. Ahlgrim’s father, Warren “Auggie” Ahlgrim, was one of three firefighters who perished fighting the Ben Franklin store fire in downtown Palatine in 1973.

Ahlgrim, who was 7 at the time of his father’s death, still retains memories of his father — riding around in his pickup truck and going to the fire station with him.

Tobin’s father, a Palatine volunteer firefighter, was among those battling the blaze, while Tobin, who later wrote a book about the fire and was a high school student at the time, rushed to the scene with his camera to take pictures.

The two proved a formidable team in bringing the front of the truck, which formerly belonged to Ladder Company 81 in the South Beach neighborhood of Staten Island, to pristine condition.

Tobin welded the parts together and handled the framework.

Ahlgrim, whom Tobin affectionately calls “the Kingpin” of the project, donated his time to perform the paint and body work.

“John actually cut the nose of it off, and then brought it to me after it was all disassembled,” Ahlgrim said. “Certain holes needed to be welded up, certain things needed to be redone on it. We ended up having to strip everything and basically refinish the whole thing. And then John put it all back together and got all the lights working on it.”

Tobin said a fire museum in Wisconsin donated the bell and the siren.

“This had to be original looking,” Tobin said. “This couldn’t be any hodgepodge stuff. It would be the exact siren, the exact bumper.”

This is the fourth New York fire truck Tobin has restored and likely his last. The first was in 2004.

A combination of factors motivates Tobin: the memory of the Ben Franklin fire, the tragedy of Sept. 11, and his respect for the fire service and history.

The tragedy of Sept. 11 also sits with Ahlgrim.

“Any of these guys that put their life on the line, it weighs very heavy with me,” he said.

When Tobin arrived at Staten Island Tuesday afternoon, he received a hero’s welcome from a crowd that included firefighters and fire officials.

“I’ve never been so publicly thanked in my life,” Tobin said. “It was like hitting a home run in the World Series.”

Ladder Company 81 and Engine Company 161 are called “The Beach Boys” because they cover the South Beach section of Staten Island.

“It’s incredible,” fire Capt. Vincent Buatti said. “I can’t believe that he took his own free time and his own resources to do this for us. We’re extremely grateful and pretty astonished.”

He said the truck was likely last active in his company in the early 1980s — trucks are usually kept for about 10 years.

Buatti, who was 18 on Sept. 11, 2001, views that day as the start of his career.

“That’s when it really became serious,” Buatti said. “I always knew I was going to be a fireman, but that really kicked it up for me.”

szalusky@dailyherald.com