Fire Engines Photos

Not a thing of beauty, this design was very practical and very popular in France for decades. With front wheel drive, the entire rear was an almost perfect cube, with a very low loading floor. It could be loaded and unloaded from the rear, the right side or through driver’s compartment - a level of practicality which was unusual in its time. The corrugated bodywork added strength without weight, making the whole vehicle very light and therefore economical.

They were used as police vans, ambulances and - like this - small general purpose fire tenders as well as by all kinds of trades and commercial users. They were not however able to be fitted with a PTO so any powered equipment had to be either a self contained portable unit or mounted on a trailer.

Added by Rob Johnson on 16 March 2021.

CTU actually means "camionette toutes usages", which translates as "light truck for all purposes" - this really describes the Citroen HY very well! 475,000 were manufactured between 1947 and 1981, and its difficult to think of any application which was not - at one time or another - put to use with one of these unique boxes on wheels...

Added by Rob Johnson on 17 March 2021.

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