American LaFrance Fire Truck

The American LaFrance Fire Truck (also known as the Freightliner Fire Truck in early beta versions and the American LaFrance Eagle when MM2 Revisited is installed) is a standard vehicle unlocked through completing five San Francisco Blitz events in Midtown Madness 2.

In-Game Description
American LaFrance Fire Truck "This fire truck is almost indestructible, but its top speed and cornering leave a lot to be desired."
 * -|Midtown Madness 2=

Details
It is the only default vehicle in Midtown Madness 2 to have a trailer (unlike Midtown Madness 1 and the early beta versions of MM2 where the Freightliner Century actually had a flatbed trailer attached to it) and shares the same cab as the cut Silver Eagle Fire Truck, which is essentially a trailer-less version of this vehicle. In the early beta versions of the game, this truck is known as the Frieghtliner Fire Truck (when you unlock this truck in the final version of the game, it will still say that you have unlocked the Freightliner Fire Truck. The voice clips in the game still refer to this vehicle by using those three words). In HQTM Team's Classic Madness, it is replaced by the older American LaFrance Type 700, which is also a trailer-less fire truck.

History


American LaFrance has been producing firefighting equipment since 1873 and fire engines since 1903. Over the years, it has made many different types of firefighting vehicles, from airport crash turcks to aerial ladders trucks, such as the American LaFrance Type 700 of the 1950s. In 1995, Freightliner bought out American LaFrance, along with other commercial vehicle brands. It was in this period that the Freightliner Century, Freightliner FLD 120 Classic XL, American LaFrance Fire Truck and Silver Eagle Fire Truck were produced. In 2005, rights to LaFrance were once again sold to Patriach Partners, who still used the same plant, until DaimlerChrysler started using it as an assembly line for the Dodge/Freightliner Sprinter, a rebranded Mercedes-Benz Sprinter. In early 2008, American LaFrance was filed for bankruptcy, but recovered later that year under a new initiative to spread the vehicles' production across the US.

Races As An Opponent
The American LaFrance Fire Truck is not featured in any default races in Midtown Madness 2 as a computer-generated opponent, possibly due to its large size.

Stats

 * Top Speed: 112 mph
 * Horsepower: 500 bhp
 * Mass: 61,740 lbs
 * Durability: Very High

Quotes
All in-game commentary related to the American LaFrance Fire Truck:
 * -|San Francisco (MM2)= All San Francisco quotes that apply to the American LaFrance Fire Truck, provided by various announcers:


 * -|London (MM2)= All London quotes that apply to the American LaFrance Fire Truck, provided by various announcers:

MM1 Mod Version
It also includes a previously unreleased add-on: the American LaFrance Fire Truck is added in MM2 to MM1 Car Pack.

Trivia

 * Watch the trailer wheels. Midtown Madness 2 introduces multi-wheel steering, which could be why the Freightliner Century didn't have its flatbed trailer in the final version of it as it had four wheels.
 * In the early beta versions of MM2, the trailer's wheels stay straight even when the tiller truck steers. This is because the flatbed trailer for the Frieghtliner Century was originally attached to it, and its wheels realistically did not steer at all, and the later versions of the game had a new trailer system, which caused the rear wheels of the Freightliner Century's trailer to also steer and the entire flatbed trailer itself to be really glitchy, no matter what type of semi-truck was used, so the flatbed trailer is no longer attached to the same big rig from MM1. However, during the game's beta-testing, this didn't apply to the cars that also use multi-wheel steering, like the VW New Beetle and the Audi TT.
 * For some reason, the Dalmatian livery is available once this truck itself is unlocked and the Green color has to be unlocked by completing the rest of the San Francisco Blitz races. This is obviously an error in the game's development, since Green is a normal color like Yellow and Red whereas Dalmatian is a custom paint job. This should have been fixed during the game's beta testing or in the MM2 Revisited mod; a patch for V5 exists, but was fixed in the V6 version of the mod.
 * Additionally, there is oddly no information that tells you how to unlock the custom paint job, unlike all the other default vehicles with unlockable paint jobs.
 * In dashboard view, the camera will slowly pitch when the truck goes uphill or downhill. This was fixed in MM2 Revisited.
 * This truck was originally planned to have its own siren sound effects, but since they were not implemented in the game, it uses the same siren sound effects as the police cars instead. However, the fire truck siren sound effects remain in the mm2aud.ar file and can be enabled by modding the game.
 * Interestingly, all the vehicles unlocked from completing races in San Francisco all have an animal themed color, with the exception being the Light Tactical Vehicle as it had no custom paint jobs anyway.
 * Like the Freightliner Century (if its flatbed trailer is attached to it in Midtown Madness 2) or an add-on truck with an attached trailer, this fire truck's trailer will stay in place and act like a non-solid object and float in the air, and its high-poly wheels are invisible if it's used as an opponent in a custom race or as a pursuit vehicle.
 * Oddly, when this vehicle is used in custom races or as a pursuit vehicle (its siren will be used since this is an emergency vehicle, thus it will act like a police car), the trailer doesn't stick to the truck unit and acts like a non-solid object that can be driven through and its high-poly wheels are invisible. It can also be extremely sensitive when it crashes into a solid object at a normal or high speed as it will launch and fly around like a rocket and land somewhere far away from the object it ran into or head for one of the borders of the city and disappear. This also happens with the Freightliner Century and can also happen with add-on trucks that have an attached trailer on them.
 * There are two duplicated copies of the .pkg files for the truck unit and its trailer named "vplafrance" and "vpftruck." This also applies to the London Cab, Aston Martin DB7 Vantage, the VW New Beetle RSi and the VW New Beetle Dune (except only one duplicated .pkg file for each vehicle exists).
 * When this truck was converted back to Midtown Madness 1's format by Toty, its trailer didn't work properly, so it was later made as a "Beta" addon vehicle for the game until it was scrapped and replaced by the Silver Eagle Fire Truck.