Series I Fire Tender
Factory-built fire tender on the Series I Land Rover, sold by Rover from the late 1940s with a power-take-off-driven pump, hoses and equipment lockers for estate, works and rural brigades.
Factory colours
- Fire Engine Red
Codes on hover. Hex values are representative approximations of period paint unless a source states a measured value.
History
Fire fighting was among the first specialist roles Rover catalogued for the Land Rover. From the late 1940s the company fitted out Series I chassis in-house as complete fire appliances, buying in pumps and equipment from specialist suppliers to offer a standard fire tender - initially on the 80-inch wheelbase and later on the longer 86/88 and 107/109-inch chassis. Typical outfits paired a pump driven from the centre power take-off (with rear pump installations on many vehicles) with hose reels, ladders, extinguishers and, on some vehicles, a 40-gallon first-aid water tank; others were equipped more simply as hose carriers and towing vehicles for trailer pumps.
The customers were rarely city brigades, whose appliances were far larger; Series I fire engines instead went to factories, airfields, estates, and rural county brigades that needed a compact all-wheel-drive appliance able to reach a moorland or farm fire. Surviving examples include vehicles delivered new to works brigades - the printing firm Hazell, Watson & Viney among them - and machines like the 1958 Series I fire engine LCC23 and the 1949 tender JRT 797 now shown at museums and concours events, almost invariably in traditional fire-appliance red.
Rover soon found that fire authorities wanted more varied and professional specifications than the factory could economically provide, and in the mid-1950s Carmichael and Sons of Worcester - already an established fire engineering house - was appointed Land Rover's approved fire appliance converter. That relationship carried Land Rover fire engines through the Series II era's Redwing range and ultimately to the six-wheel Carmichael conversions of Range Rover and Defender, but it began with these first factory Series I tenders.
Imagery
Registry record
- Manufacturer
- Land Rover (Rover Company)
- Manufactured
- Factory fire tenders offered through the Series I era, late 1940s to 1958
- Modifier / coachbuilder
- Rover in-house fitting-out; Carmichael & Sons appointed approved fire-appliance converter from the mid-1950s
- Engine type
- 1.6 L and 2.0 L petrol inline-fours (per donor Series I)
- Country of origin
- United Kingdom
- Status
- out of production; preserved examples survive
Catalogue data
- Record kind
- Named model
- Model line
- Series I
- Wheels
- 4
Base catalogue fields are exported from the Difflocked game. In-game physics values are arcade tuning, not certified historical measurements, and are deliberately not shown as specifications here.
Sources & citations
Researched sources
- Fire and Crash Tenders (Rover's own Series I 80" fire appliances from the late 1940s; 40-gallon tanks, PTO pumps; Carmichael appointed approved converter mid-1950s) ↗ — guide2landrover (accessed 2026-09-10)
- 1951 Land Rover Series I 80 Fire Tender, chassis 16101642 (1.6-litre sidevalve engine; fire tender configuration) ↗ — Bonhams (accessed 2026-09-10)
- File:Hazell Watson and Viney Land Rover Fire Engine.jpg (works-brigade Series Land Rover fire engine) ↗ — Wikimedia Commons (accessed 2026-09-10)
- Series One Fire Tender discussion (period equipment and surviving examples) ↗ — Land Rover UK Forums (accessed 2026-09-10)
Drive it
This vehicle is playable in the Difflocked racing game.
RACE THE SERIES I FIRE TENDER ↗Registry record updated 2026-09-09T15:08:11.130Z · status: researched