Fire Engines Photos

Unfortunately the firm tried for much too long to focus on the “premium” UK fire appliance market exemplified by Dennis and to a lesser degree ERF and Shelvoke. They eventually built a few units on Ford and Bedford chassis like this unit. This was where the vast majority of the market was located, mainly for water tenders, but for years they confined their activities to building units on AEC chassis which were comparatively expensive and not very well received by many brigades - and except for their turntable ladders.

Added by Rob Johnson on 14 March 2022.

Why was this? AEC' s were almost standard issue chassis for turntable ladders but rare as 'normal' appliances.

Added by CraigW on 21 March 2022.

Hi Craig. Merryweather was the only UK manufacturer of turntable ladders, and they offered them initially only on AEC chassis, although a handful were built in later years on Bedford chassis at the insistence of a few CFOs. On the other hand you could buy pumps, water tenders, ETs and other specials on Bedford, Commer, Dodge, Dennis, ERF, Ford, Karrier or Leyland chassis.

If you really wanted one of these chassis for your TL, you had to go to imported Magirus or Metz for your ladder. Although these were both possibly a better choice, they were more expensive and some local authorities still balked at buying imported ladders from Germany. There were a few oddballs, like the half dozen Dennis Camiva ladders which were imported from France, but I think this summary is pretty accurate overall.

Added by Rob Johnson on 21 March 2022.

That is interesting, so if you wanted an all British TL you got an AEC Merryweather. With many local authorities having rigid 'Buy British' policies back then I can see why the AEC TL had so many sale .


Added by CraigW on 24 March 2022.

The situation was so bad that - for example - Gloucestershire insisted on petrol engines for their 1966 purchase of the first eleven Ford D series water tenders, because their other appliances were all Commer and Dennis petrol units.

This meant we had to bring petrol engines from Ford Canada for these, as we did not have a locally sourced six cylinder petrol engine!

But, guess what, the brigade did already have AEC Merryweather TLs, which were of course diesel, because that was Hobson’s choice.

There were many other similar cases, not least Essex which ran three AEC Merryweather TLs among a huge fleet of Rolls petrol engined Dennis appliances.

Added by Rob Johnson on 25 March 2022.

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