Does anyone know the history of the Bedford? I have a small picture of a Bedford four-door pump that the Rover Co. had; it was one of a few prototypes built by Coventry Climax in 1939 that, according to the advertising brochure would bring state of the art fire protection for rural and small towns in the UK; the pump was skid-mounted at the rear, a fore runer of the Heavy Units that came about the same time. One of these pumps went to Finland with a full British crew of firefighters during their war was with Russia along with a crew of British firefighters; does anyone have more details of this?
All i am aware of is it was one of only ten ever made, and is the only known survivor of it's type. Made out of wood, it was built for the Rover factory in Solihull and is believed to have been used during the Coventry blitz.it was restored with the help of the fire museum and if i can locate the episode of salvage squad i will do so and post any further info
There is another, BAV??? converted post war to an escape carrying unit. Now in Ireland
Added by Peter McCombie on 13 May 2011.
DNX 958 was definitely with Rover, Solihull, whilst LOM 860 was with Fisher Ludlow.
Added by Ian Moore on 14 May 2011.
I'm glad to read the new input of these interesting Covenry Climax 1938/39 appliances. My factory brochure seems to indicate it was qute popular with small semirural brigades. He Ian, how about them having wooden bodies? Good to hear Ian is still contributing All good wishes to all the oldtimers atill active. Bob Graham. Richmond, California
Fisher and Ludlow was a British car body manufacturing company which was acquired by the British Motor Corporation (BMC) in 1953. It was based in Castle Bromwich near Birmingham. After the merger of BMC and Pressed Steel Company (PSC) in 1966, and the formation of the British Leyland Motor Corporation (BLMC) in 1968, the Fisher & Ludlow business was merged with the PSC business to form Pressed Steel Fisher under BLMC. Thanks to wikipedia.
Added by Alan Ramsay on 26 February 2010.