The restoration crew is sand blasting all the rims but the one (spare tire) that I'm working on. It does seem like heavy duty metal and even with the wire wheel the rim is cleaning up nicely.
And you are right about the TLC a fire truck gets. The problem with most of them comes when a bright shinny new truck shows up in the fire house and the old one gets thrown out. Its sad that there are few firefighters who really value those old trucks.
In my case, the truck has been stored in a heated and AC fire house all of its life except for about two or three years. Once we have restored it, it will forever sleep in an old fire house as long as I'm alive.
