Fire Engines Photos

The red portion is the original factory tilt cab, with the addition of a fiberglass roof cap. The unpainted B pillar and hinged rear cab door are profiled to transition the body style from the bumped out front door to the flat rear panels where the side lockers are located.

This clever styling approach is even more impressive on other identical HCB Angus units where the entire body is painted red, and to my mind it is much more effective when it comes to achieving a coherent appearance than the contemporary effort by Carmichael on the D series chassis cab.

First sold to Gloucestershire Fire Brigade in 1967, the D series was a European design based on the wildly successful American Ford C series, which was very popular among US fire departments, and was one of the very first tilt cab trucks sold in the UK.

The D series struggled to gain a toehold among British fire services, mainly because Bedford had become so entrenched over a period of seventeen years - and the TK was an excellent fire engine chassis despite being a fixed cab design.

Nevertheless, Ford sold quite a large number of D series to around a dozen brigades, mainly with HCB Angus or Carmichael bodywork. Much larger numbers were exported to Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands, although these were mostly bodied and fitted out locally.

Added by Rob Johnson on 17 October 2017.

see rear view of sister here - slightly unusual bodywork for HCBAngus



Added by Petros on 19 May 2022.

Quick update. Ford D series actually made it into over thirty UK municipal and county fire brigades, as well as numerous factory brigades. The largest fleets were Lancashire (over 40) and Gloucestershire (around 20). As well as the various SVO special fire appliance chassis, regular commercial chassis were also used by many brigades mainly for "specials" and support units.

Added by Rob Johnson on 19 May 2022.

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