Yes, I picked up Safety 3 in an eBay auction!

The eBay auction (5.6MByte PDF)

And at my house...

  • Front View

  • Right Front View

  • Right View

  • Christiano DaMatta Sticker on the window

  • Right Rear View"

  • Engine View

  • Engine View

  • Siren and PA controls

  • Strobes and Fire Hose water pump controls

  • Side View

    • And with a goal of maintaining it in as "stock" a condition as possible, the great dilemma of how to mount a license plate took shape...

    Here's the rear of the truck:

    Here's the plate itself:

    And here's how a few dollars worth of parts at the hardware store prevented any permanent modifications or changes to the truck (although I did have to drill out the license plate. Sorry, State of Arizona...)

    One of the strobes on the rear bumper was cracked:

    but with the help of Michael Netherton from projectresponder.com, I was able to acquire replacement strobes :)

    Here's my short job of connecting the new light:

    And here it is all together:

    The license plate project

    Seeing as after its modifications to become a safety vehicle it had no business being on the road, nobody put a license plate holder (or light) on it. Since the rear windows are tinted, placing it inside is not an option even for daylight.

    The first attempt

    The first thought was to mount it as listed above. That would be right between the seats.

    The problem: When the "Trunk" hatch is opened it tends to catch and/or crinkle the lower part of the plate. During those times it catches the plate it eventually loosens the mounting.

    The second attempt

    This time I engineered a mount
    which seemed to work pretty well:

    The problem: it eliminates the ability to have people sit in both seats when I get safety belts, and there's no power conveniently nearby for the license plate lamp.

    The solution

    First to splice into the running lamp and not the turn signal or any of the strobes. For those keeping track there are three wires running to the tail-light plug. Red (turn-signal), brown (running lamp), and black (ground). "Brake Light" is the turn-signal and running-lamp both being lit. So the trick is to splice into the brown and the black:

    Now the final assembly, held on by a dealer-plate magnet. BUT WAIT, the whole assembly is NON-MAGNETIC (Non-feric for you science types). Agh! So for now there are two magnets, one on the inside of the little hatch, one on the outside. The wiring comes through a small hole drilled in the handle mechanism behind the handle where it cannot be seen.

    And now all together and with the magnet:

    History:

    Here's a historic picture from before the Holmatro sponsoship[thanks Mclark2112]:

    And here it is in the rain[thanks BooBoo]:

    And pre-race [thanks, Bob]:

    Here's a description from Timeline on CCF:

    Mike Carey drove Safety 3. I spoke to him several times at various tracks. He is a very personable gentleman. He is the tall gentleman with the mustache walking towards this group. The lovely lady on the cell phone was safety dispatch. She spoke to them during incidents on their headsets.

    And at the Long Beach Grand Prix 2007 (Last real LBGP!) [thanks Late2Brake!]

    And next to the transporters and the safety crews! [thanks Orchid!]