This Reliant reinforced fiberglass full tilt crew cab was a major advance in its day, but very few were bought.
The reason? Merryweather was very late when it came to entering the market for fire appliances on volume commercial truck chassis like Ford, Dodge and Bedford, which were the favorite brands of most larger county fire brigades.
They stuck with the more expensive AEC, which county brigades rarely bought - except for TL chassis. This limited most of their sales to city and borough brigades, who bought far fewer units.
By the time the "Marksman" was introduced, both Carmichael and HCB-Angus offered D series chassis, and were selling them in quite decent numbers.
So, as the saying goes, they really missed the boat!
The reason? Merryweather was very late when it came to entering the market for fire appliances on volume commercial truck chassis like Ford, Dodge and Bedford, which were the favorite brands of most larger county fire brigades.
They stuck with the more expensive AEC, which county brigades rarely bought - except for TL chassis. This limited most of their sales to city and borough brigades, who bought far fewer units.
By the time the "Marksman" was introduced, both Carmichael and HCB-Angus offered D series chassis, and were selling them in quite decent numbers.
So, as the saying goes, they really missed the boat!
Added by Rob Johnson on 23 July 2019.