Fire Engines Photos

The D series is one of eleven we sold when I worked for Ford Truck division, and were the first to go into a British fire brigade fleet.

They had a special order Canadian built five liter six cylinder petrol engine, because in the mid sixties many fire brigades still insisted on petrol engines.

Later SVO chassis had either Ford's own five liter turbo diesel or the ubiquitous Perkins V8, which was also installed in Dennis, Dodge, ERF and Shelvoke appliance chassis. (It became the standard power unit in London appliances for many years.)

D series ended up in virtually every application, although the vast majority were water tenders. Around thirty British fire brigades used them and they were very popular in many overseas countries, especially Australia and New Zealand - as well as in places where they were assembled in local factories.

But the volumes were still too low to justify a fire appliance SVO chassis when the Cargo replaced the D series, and Cargo fire trucks were pretty much limited to local assembly markets such as Turkey, Brazil and Venezuela.

Added by Rob Johnson on 18 June 2019.

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