Green Goddess fetches £500 at auction - 01/04/2010

A vintage fire engine dating from the 1950s has been sold at an auction in Hull for just £500.

Despite a full house at the Gilbert Baitson auction room, Steve Rust's bid of £500 for the Green Goddess was accepted, even though it was expected to fetch more than £1,000, the Hull Daily Mail reports.

Auctioneer Michael Baitson said it was the first time that he had seen a Green Goddess, a model first used by the Auxiliary Fire Service, sold at auction.

"It has been on a farm in Holderness for 12 months and belonged to Mighty Hire, a company which went into liquidation," he told the newspaper.

The Green Goddess's real name is the Bedford RLHZ Self Propelled Pump and they were later used by the Army before being taken out of service in 1968.

New owner Steve Rust told the newspaper that he had purchased "a piece of history", although admitted that he doesn't yet know what to do with it.

Green Goddesses were constructed between 1953 and 1956.