That sounds accurate enough, Dan. The S&M lights have been around for many years. Midland's early American-LaFrance firetrucks had S&M red sealed-beam lights cowl-mounted. Those were trucks that they had from 1952-c.1956.
Joe Ortiz leases vintage emergency vehicles to the movie studios out west and has a large inventory of vintage fire trucks, ambulances and rescues. I got to visit his "compound" when I was there in the summer of 2002 for PCI's Summer Meet. They had this year's meet this past Saturday....darn it!
Since his '47 Rescue has an oval S&M light as I mentioned, I'd be willing to be that the one on his Buick ambulance is something he added sometime back, and not something that had come with the ambulance from Trinity's plant here in TX, as I had speculated.
BTW, Dan, that summer meet is something you would enjoy. The actual meet is held at a place north of Burbank known as Hansen Dam, with a lot of static displays from all L.A. County emergency services. But the event is kicked off early on Saturday morning with a Rollin' to the Rescue Code 3 Run that starts at a specified place, like Joe's compound in '02, and it features all the vintage fire trucks, rescues, and ambulances that are the combined forces of PCI, SPAAMFA and the Crown Firecoach Enthusiasts. The original Engine 51 on Emergency! is a Crown. PCI President Lou Farah has a Crown pumper as well as a nice 1969 Stoner/Chevy high top Suburban ambulance. I had the extreme pleasure in driving Lou's Suburban ambulance in the Code 3 run in '02. Can you imagine running Code 3 on an L.A. freeway with an LAPD escort with all those lights and sirens going all at once???? Like the old Beach Boys' song: We had fun, fun, fun!
