Fire Engines Photos

Alf,
Great image, the light was just right for the shot.
Regards,
Steve

Added by Steve Prosser on 15 January 2014.

This is a rather unusual truck. In 1965 very few Magirus fire trucks were built on this forward control chassis. The front-mounted pump is typical of the Netherlands at this time, but these were much less common in Germany. The engine is an air cooled 126 horsepower diesel V8, which explains why the front grille is blanked off.

Added by Rob Johnson on 15 January 2014.

Rob,
I remember seeing those front pumps quite regularely here in Austria when I was boy (1960ies - 70ies). Especially on smaller vehicles like Opel Blitz or Land Rovers. Maybe not standard but not uncommon either.

Added by Martin Siegel on 15 January 2014.

Martin. In the 1960s a lot of German light pumpers (LF8) had front-mounted 800 LPM pumps, and these were mostly Mercedes 408 and 608 and Opel Blitz vans. But the heavier 1600 LPM pumpa, like the one on this Dutch Magirus, were only front-mounted on the LF16-TS, which carried an additional 800 LPM portable pump in a rear central locker. This was where the 1600 LPM was located on most FL16 and TLF16 pumpers, and is of course now pretty much universal across Europe.

But the Netherlands favored front-mounted pumps on almost all pumpers at this time. So did the Scandinavian countries, and they were also common in both Switzerland and - as you mention - Austria.

This forward-control Magirus chassis was not often used as a fire appliance, but their normal control chassis were very common all over northern Europe. One reason was their air-cooled engines, which were very popular in cold weather conditions because there was no risk of coolant freezing up.

Many Land-Rovers were fitted with front-mounted pumps in almost every country where they were used. This saved space on what was after all a pretty small vehicle, and Coventry Climax offered a very compact lightweight front-mounted pump for the Land-Rover, which had a capacity of 2275 LPM @ 7AT.

Added by Rob Johnson on 27 August 2014.

Rob, Thanks for the info. I remember that the normal control Magirus-Deutz trucks were huge. At least to me but I was only a boy back in the 1960ies.
Forward control chassis were still rare at that time, seen mostly on "modern" busses (coaches) then, if I remember correctly.

Added by Martin Siegel on 01 September 2014.

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