Tarpan Honker Command & Control UnitTarpan Honker - Command & Control Unit – Janów Lubelski
This 1998 4x4 Tarpan Honker serves as a Command & Control Unit at the State Fire Service fire & rescue station in Janów Lubelski, eastern Poland. Originally, it belonged to the Polish Border Guard, before it was handed over to the fire service. It was resprayed, refurbished and fitted with additional radio equipment. It has 5 pre-programmed base radios (manufactured by Motorola and Radmor), which allow the incident commander to stay in touch with other emergency services, both at local and regional level. One of the radios is tuned to the State Forest Service channel, which helps coordinating firefighting operations in the woods. A detachable radio mast, complementing the set, is kept at the station. It can be attached to the vehicle and brought into position at the scene. A set of loadspeakers is also ready for use in case of a major emergency, when the public have to be warned and/or advised what to do.
For everyday duties, the officers at Janów Lubelski use a 2007 Suzuki Grand Vitara.
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Tarpan Honker started off as light 4x4 multi-purpose vehicle for the military in 1988, following almost 10 years of development. It was supposed to become a Polish counterpart of Mercedes-Benz 'G', Land Rover Defender, or the UAZ. Unfortunately, even though the machine had a promising start, the chronically underfinanced programme failed to produce anything of that calibre. The Honker was produced by 4 different companies at 2 different factories (in Poznań and Lublin) in its history, the last one being the British-Russian Intrall. Production eventually ceased in 2007, following Intrall's bankrupcy. Even though yet another company, Igma of Warsaw, aquired the rights to Honker, the future of the Polish 4x4 remains uncertain. A wide range of specialist versions were created; including ambulances (military and civilian), bomb disposal units, light armoured patrol cars, etc. The fire service still uses a lot of them, as L4Ps, boat towing units, light rescues, but primarilly as command vehicles/officer's cars.
Picture added on 02 May 2009 at 10:51
