GB Fire
Fire-appliance specialist credited, alongside Land Rover's own special vehicles operation, with building the one-off 1998 six-wheeled Defender fire engine that served as the works appliance at Land Rover's Gaydon proving ground. Nothing further about the firm could be established.
History
The best-documented six-wheeled Defender fire appliance began life in 1998 as a standard-wheelbase five-door station wagon and was converted to 6x6 with a crew cab, high equipment body, pump, water tank and roof ladder rack. Both surviving accounts of the vehicle — the Land Rover Collector record and the restorer ACHSV's project page — state that the conversion was carried out by Land Rover's special vehicles operation together with GB Fire. The appliance protected the Jaguar Land Rover proving ground at Gaydon, Warwickshire, until around 2015–16, was sold through Land Rover Classic in Coventry in 2017, and was then refurbished by ACHSV with new paint and a new Godiva pump for the DCS Group in Banbury, where it serves as a private works appliance.
Beyond that credit the company is undocumented. No history, address, product range or list of other appliances could be traced, and the name is not distinctive: several unrelated UK businesses are registered under variations of it. A GB Fire Limited (company 02706712) was incorporated in Birmingham on 14 April 1992 — briefly as Maidnuit Limited — and dissolved on 11 April 2018, which fits the period of the Gaydon conversion, but nothing found connects that registration to the fire-appliance work, so it is recorded here only as a possibility rather than an identification.
Vehicles in this registry (1)
Sources & citations
- 1998 Defender Fire Engine 6x6 ('The conversion was carried out by JLR Special Vehicles and GB Fire'; in service at the Gaydon test track until 2016; bought from Land Rover Classic, Coventry, in 2017; refurbished by ACHSV with a new Godiva pump) ↗ — Land Rover Collector (accessed 2026-09-10)
- Land Rover Defender 6x6 Fire Engine restoration (ex-Gaydon appliance refurbished with new Godiva pump, now the DCS Group fire appliance, Banbury) ↗ — ACHSV (accessed 2026-09-10)
- GB FIRE LIMITED, company number 02706712 (incorporated 14 April 1992 as Maidnuit Limited, renamed GB Fire Limited 17 June 1992; registered office 79 Caroline Street, Birmingham; dissolved 11 April 2018) — recorded as a name match only ↗ — Companies House (GOV.UK) (accessed 2026-09-10)
Maker record updated 2026-09-10T05:40:28.275Z · status: draft