Well, I tried.

Have you ever image googled 'birthday cakes'?  Have you tried, 'fire truck birthday cake'?  There are some pretty amazing people out there who know how to wield a spatula and a bag of icing.  I was looking up birthday cakes for my son this week and came across the fire engine cakes.  I thought, "Heh, I could do that!  And it would look awesome!  Look how simple it is!"

Ha ha... ha...

I used two bread pans for the form.  Unfortunately they only rose to about half-way up the pan, so I ended up having to stack them on top of each other.  They broke in the process.  I used the wrong icing colors.  I specifically asked my husband to buy white and cream cheese frosting.  Cream cheese for the main red part (because it is yummy), and white for the details.  Well, I ended up with a nice pink frosting because I mixed up the colors.

Despite the fact that it didn't end up with shiny red paint, two levels, and real working sirens like in my mind, it turned out okay.  As long as he can recognize it :)

The thing that worked the best was this step from Bakerella.  Icing it with a crumb layer, hardening it in the fridge, and then icing it again with red on top.  It made little to no mess with the crumbs.  So that's the tip of the day.  Go check it out!