Wichita used-car lot wants you behind the wheel of a … fire truck?

If you never got over you childhood love of fire trucks, you might want to check out the CAG Auto used-car lot on South Broadway in Wichita.

For $5,000, you could drive home in a fire engine of your very own.

CAG Auto, at 4333 S. Broadway, has a low-mileage, lightly used 1978 Ward La France fire engine for sale on the lot. The color is fire-engine red (duh) and the previous owner only drove it to the occasional fire.

James Porter, the owner of the car lot, said he originally bought the fire truck for his own use. He had planned to strip the tanks and pumps off the back and convert the heavy-duty chassis into a car carrier.

But he broke his arm in a motorcycle accident and his enthusiasm for the project has waned, so he decided to put the truck up for sale as is.

He said Wichita Fire Department officials took a look at the fire engine on Wednesday and said they may make an offer to buy it as a training truck.

Although fire trucks are incredibly powerful and notorious fuel hogs, Porter whimsically slapped a sign on the windshield proclaiming it a “GAS-SAVER.”

Technically, that’s true. It runs on diesel.

The truck is powered by a massive turbocharged Detroit Diesel 671 engine, feeding a 3-speed Allison automatic transmission.

That’ll pull some stumps out of your yard.

Porter bought the truck as surplus from the volunteer fire department of Linn Valley, a private lakeside resort community of about 850 people, 40 miles south of Kansas City.

Fires were rare in Linn Valley and the truck has less than 15,000 miles on the odometer, Porter said.

He said Linn Valley had to replace it because the pumps for spraying water on fires were outdated and could no longer meet federal fire department certification requirements.

“The rest of the truck’s great,” he said.

He said he occasionally will take the truck to cruise night events.

“They’ll all jump on it there like it’s one of the best things ever,” he said.

And he said he recently took it for a cruise through Old Town.

“The next thing you know, a bunch of police pulled us over,” he said. “They thought it was pretty cool driving it around.”

This story was originally published August 19, 2017 at 2:51 PM with the headline "Wichita used-car lot wants you behind the wheel of a … fire truck?."