Fire Engines Photos

Note the short two door crew cab. This was often a feature of French turntable ladders at this period. Oddly enough, it was also a design favored for water tenders in Poland uniting the 1990s, before Western European trucks started to be imported. The advantages were a short cab and presumably also lower cost. The obvious disadvantages were access/egress and a lack of comfort for those unfortunates riding in the back.

Added by Rob Johnson on 29 May 2022.

This Renault 4 VTU is probably as small as they came! Just like Germany, and other countries which have introduced minor alarm units, French VTUs have tended to grow bigger over the years, as fire services continue to add more and more "essential" items to their inventory of contents. Perhaps they will eventually become so big that they will resemble the old Belgian "material tender" - essentially a pump appliance without the pump or water tank?

Added by Rob Johnson on 29 May 2022.

The seats at the back were facing each other, and staff were sitting the back to the windows

Added by Jacques PETER on 30 May 2022.

The British Dennis F17 Metz TTL in the early 1950s achieved a short crew cab by having a rear facing crew seat under a half canopy - a similar arrangement as was originally invented by American La France in the 1940s, and later adopted by almost every American fire truck builder. But the French solution is ideal for crew members who could have a nice game of chess on the way to an incident, and they were more likely to stay dry if it rained! Not having done much of either, I wonder if riding backwards is better or worse than traveling sideways?

Ed: I am going to post a picture showing the seating on an F17

Added by Rob Johnson on 30 May 2022.

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