Thread: CFD MARS Skybolt Lightbar / Video added-

Originally Posted by Respondcode3

Illlinois never required green on ambulances. The green light on all CFD appratus is a traditon that goes back to the 1920's. The commisioner at the time James Corrigan's family owned a shipping line and had a nautical backround. He used the red and green for port and starboard and adopted it to fire apparatus. To this day it is a tradition in the Chicago area. The same was true for Chicago firehouses.

That is a great piece of information, any photos of the original trucks with the green?
thanks!!!!!!
Todd

The original trucks were in the 1920's probably old Macks and Aherns-fox rigs back then

Originally Posted by fireball3

I received this bar, who will join my collection, it was installed on a police car from the city of Streator, Illinois, in the 70's.
I received it with a loudspeaker signal CP Federal-100 that I replaced with light of 888 MARS.

Cyril

-whiping drool off my keyboard and face- This is my new Favorite thread! Wow! Nice I am so jealous!

Originally Posted by JennyCop

-whiping drool off my keyboard and face- This is my new Favorite thread! Wow! Nice I am so jealous!

Thanks,... To finish, it will be CFD!
Cyril

Originally Posted by JennyCop

-whiping drool off my keyboard and face- This is my new Favorite thread! Wow! Nice I am so jealous!

Welcome aboard, Jenny! That center mounted 888 reminds me of an old Mars DL8 that we had on an ambulance in the early '70s. The DL series was a figure-8 light w/o the extra "wobble" of an 888, and was a bulb-reflector setup. This old light had been 6-volt, with a standard auto. turn signal type bulb. It had a solid red glass lens. We put a 12-volt #1019 bulb out of a Jr. Beacon Ray light in place of the old bulb and mounted the light on the front center of the ambulance roof (an old '60 Chevy wagon BTW). Surprisingly enough, we ran that old light for a long time and it never hurt the old 6-volt motor: but did it ever get up and move! One night we were transporting a patient from the local racetrack when all of a sudden a sheriff's unit jumps in front of us to escort us. This guy took off like a scalded ape, and it was all we could do to keep up with him. When we finally "landed" at the ER and got our patient unloaded, we came out and I went to thank the deputy for the escort. Turned out to be someone I knew! So when I thanked him, he chuckled and exclaimed that we didn't need him because that blasted "wobbly light" was so bright that he was doing all he could to stay ahead of it w/o it blinding him. He really liked it and so did we!

Originally Posted by Skip Goulet

Welcome aboard, Jenny! That center mounted 888 reminds me of an old Mars DL8 that we had on an ambulance in the early '70s. The DL series was a figure-8 light w/o the extra "wobble" of an 888, and was a bulb-reflector setup. This old light had been 6-volt, with a standard auto. turn signal type bulb. It had a solid red glass lens. We put a 12-volt #1019 bulb out of a Jr. Beacon Ray light in place of the old bulb and mounted the light on the front center of the ambulance roof (an old '60 Chevy wagon BTW). Surprisingly enough, we ran that old light for a long time and it never hurt the old 6-volt motor: but did it ever get up and move! One night we were transporting a patient from the local racetrack when all of a sudden a sheriff's unit jumps in front of us to escort us. This guy took off like a scalded ape, and it was all we could do to keep up with him. When we finally "landed" at the ER and got our patient unloaded, we came out and I went to thank the deputy for the escort. Turned out to be someone I knew! So when I thanked him, he chuckled and exclaimed that we didn't need him because that blasted "wobbly light" was so bright that he was doing all he could to stay ahead of it w/o it blinding him. He really liked it and so did we!

amusing anecdote!... Thanks
Cyril

Originally Posted by fireball3

amusing anecdote!... Thanks
Cyril

Thanks, Cyril! What I didn't mention was the rest of the emergency equipment on that old wagon. Behind the Mars light was a short-skirted 17 beacon. On the front corners of the roof were a pair of blue single-faced Carpenter lights, and there was a pair of the big 6" Unity red sealed beam lights on the bumper. We had an alternating flasher connected to the flashing lights with a criss-cross pattern, where the bumper left light flashed with the right roof light, etc. The siren, a 77GB Doubletone, went on the right fender, and was that old thing loud! It had been rebuilt and had an oversized motor that really made it scream. One of our guys worked as a projectionist at a movie theater that was at a busy intersection and right on the path we took to the ER we frequented. One night he had to work and didn't go to the races we worked on Friday nights. The theater was showing "2001 Space Odyssey" which was quite long and had an intermission. We ended up having to run to the hospital, and because that intersection was so busy, we had the siren totally peaked going into the intersection. The guy told us later that the movie had just broken for the intermission as we were making the run. He said that when we got close to the intersection with that old siren screaming, there were all sorts of little noses pressed up against the plate-glass windows watching us come through! And he said that the siren was vibrating the glass! He was afraid it might shatter, but fortunatley, didn't!! Don't see things like that nowadays....except for the now-more-spectacular displays of the new LED bars! But for it's time, that old wagon was really neat. A pile of junk when we first got it, though. It was eventually replaced with a '63 Pontiac Consort ambulance.

I just finished my CFD Mars Bar Project, the green bulb was installed at its respective location ...


Cyril













(Source Copcardotcom)

Does anybody have any pictures, or, for that matter, a Mars lightbar, that was red/blue? I ask because I haven't really seen any Mars lightbars with a red/blue setup. They've strictly been the Chicago setups. I think there may have been some in Sugerland Express, but I was thinking more of an actual agency that used Mars red/blue.

Amazing lightbar man!Congratulation!!
Elle est magnifique Cyril!Vivement la vidéo!

Originally Posted by dg0223

Does anybody have any pictures, or, for that matter, a Mars lightbar, that was red/blue? I ask because I haven't really seen any Mars lightbars with a red/blue setup. They've strictly been the Chicago setups. I think there may have been some in Sugerland Express, but I was thinking more of an actual agency that used Mars red/blue.

Same for me, I have never seen somewhere, a Mars Bar Red / Blue, the only ones I've always seen, are R / R, B / B or RC / RC.
IMHO these bars has been mostly Illinois and Texas.

Originally Posted by solid_snake

Amazing lightbar man!Congratulation!!
Elle est magnifique Cyril!Vivement la vidéo!

Merci Hervé!


/Cyril

Originally Posted by dg0223

Does anybody have any pictures, or, for that matter, a Mars lightbar, that was red/blue? I ask because I haven't really seen any Mars lightbars with a red/blue setup. They've strictly been the Chicago setups. I think there may have been some in Sugerland Express, but I was thinking more of an actual agency that used Mars red/blue.

Originally Posted by fireball3

Same for me, I have never seen somewhere, a Mars Bar Red / Blue, the only ones I've always seen, are R / R, B / B or RC / RC.
IMHO these bars has been mostly Illinois and Texas.
Merci Hervé!
/Cyril

My department ran RED/AMBER Mars bars! heres a pic of one! Used red/ amber filters to get the split beacon look! Red to the front Amber to the rear on the drivers side and Amber to the front, Red to the rear on the passenger side! Red/Amber was the common set up for Law Enforcement in Arizona in the seventies!

Originally Posted by JennyCop

My department ran RED/AMBER Mars bars! heres a pic of one! Used red/ amber filters to get the split beacon look! Red to the front Amber to the rear on the drivers side and Amber to the front, Red to the rear on the passenger side! Red/Amber was the common set up for Law Enforcement in Arizona in the seventies!

That is one very loaded bar! I had forgotten to mention previously about the one Mars bar my small ambulance co. had. It came only with a pair of SW2 beacons as are shown in most the bars in this thread. But we added a pair of blue DoRay lollipop lights to the bar, which helped considerably. It originally went on a '66 Ford station wagon ambulance, which had a small motordriven siren on the roof; so the bar went slightly behind the siren. The siren was a Federal WL, which is totally inadequate for actual emergency responses. It was removed and replaced by a Q siren. Talk about making a difference. The bar was eventuallly put on a '63 Chevy wagon ambulance we had gotten from a small town not too far from us. It had a Federal 28 underhood, which we left in place with two red lights behind the grille. Just for fun one of our guys mounted a tiny Federal VL siren in the center of the bar. The VL was the smallest lighted siren that Federal had produced. We hooked up the light on the VL where it alternated with the blue lollipops already on the bar, so that gave us a bit of extra light power. The VL was useless for actual responding, and we did have the 28 underhood which worked quite well. But the little VL was still fun to play with, anyway!

WOW is all i can say and if i only won that dam mega i'd make you an offer

Here's a red/blue Mars Skybolt Combo bar. Hobbs, NM and a 1977 Plymouth Fury

I knew if anybody was going to be able to dig up a picture of a red/blue Mars setup, pc0k894 was the man for the job.

And Jenny, I had set up one of my MX's as an homage to Arizona DPS by having amber filters on one side and red on the other. I have since changed it, but that color scheme seemed to look good.

Thanks, guys.

Need to alternate the can lights..

Magnifique Cyril!Je veux la même! ;-)
Amazing light!

Originally Posted by Respondcode3

Need to alternate the can lights..

I'll think about adding alternating flasher

Cyril

Originally Posted by pc0k894

Here's a red/blue Mars Skybolt Combo bar. Hobbs, NM and a 1977 Plymouth Fury

Wow! What an old pic! Hobbs is about 100 mi. SW of Lubbock, and we used to make ambulance runs to Hobbs quite often. One night we had been called by the ER at then-Methodist Hospital to transfer some medications in a hurry over to Hobbs. We had just put a lowtop Subrban into service and had gotten a pair of Tripp-Lite S200 beacons and a Trippe bar for the ambulance. These beacons have twin highpowered aircraft sealed beams and were bright. We had a pair of CP100 speakers on the bar powered by a PA200, plus a Q mounted behind the bar, so we could be seen and heard. On this run we had to make a turn to the west at Seminole, TX to make the remaining 30 mi. into Hobbs. When we got there a PD unit was waiting to escort us to the ER, as they had moved into a new hospital that we hadn't been to as yet. That unit had one of their first new Code 3 bars that had twin rotators and mirrors each side with the optional alternating rear flashers. It was the first one of those we'd seen and I thought that it was spectacular. But once we got to the ER and had taken the meds inside and had come back out, we found the two officer "oggling" the big Tripp-Lite bar. They wanted to see it lit up at close range. They would tell us that when we made the turn onto the Hobbs Highway at Seminole they could already see us, and at first thought we were much closer, until they saw how long it took us to reach their location. As I said, that was one bright lightbar!