I found this interesting photo of a Prototype Thunderbolt!

[TboltTX1]

WHOA! Put that in its own thread. Do you see what that is?!

Done!

[PugetSoundStormWatch]

Thunderbolt10031 would be proud.

[Josh]

Does anybody know where this picture was taken? In the background, i see a tower that looks like the foshay Tower (an early tower in Minneapolis).

I believe the man to his left beside the controls is the assistant Civil Defense director for Minneapolis, if I recall correctly.

*face palm* I guess I should read posts more closely.

[coastalsyrolover]

*Speechless babbling... Holy momma wow sheesh dang that wooooaa whaaa?!?!?!? That thing looks... Like it means BUSINESS!!!!!!! Thunderbolts are already cool and powerful as heck but that thing just looks deadly ear shattering!!!!! I mean... The 7000, 2000, Jailbar, and Original jailbar thunderbolts are rare and pics seem to be that way too... But this thing... Wow!!!!!

[CDV777-1]

THATS THE PROTOTYPE T-BOLT SUSPECTED NOT TO EXIST.

Who ever said that a thunderbolt prototype didn't exist?
Notice the Agastat at the bottom middle of the box.....

I always wondered about the arrangement inside the early smaller rounded first version blower box. (I have always thought
that the early Thunderbolt in the early Federal advertisement was an actual siren.) Evidently the blower was run with the
blower air outlet out of the top of the blower with the pipe coming directly out of the blower box, through
the blower housing to the flange on top of the housing. I would love to get a look inside that rotator.

[Mark N]

Y'know, that's odd how the rotator seems to be sideways from the famous ad it was in. I always thought it was simply just an artist's mistake, but now...I wonder if other weird looking sirens in ads really were made that way?

[Taterworks]

Clearly this unit was built before any die casting tooling was done for things like the rotor cap and the chopper housing. What you see here is welded steel, standard hot-rolled shapes, and standard plumbing fittings, and the walls of the chopper are formed by steel pipe and two end plates with tension bolts holding the ends together. Even the edges of the blower housing don't look very cleanly cut. It looks like Federal Signal planned to see if a city would buy off on the design before going to production.

[Tyler]

Thunderbolt10031 would be proud.

Perhaps...

[MUSTANGV8]

Pretty cool!

[SoundMaster 391]

Wow this is the first time i've actually seen a real life prototype of the Thunderbolt. I've seen them in the Thunderbolt prototype in ads but... i've never seen a actual photo of the real life prototype thunderbolt.... Man.... This is quite a lot to take in for just one simple photo.