Tag: Fire Engine

Eighties Eco-Concept Marvels: Number 2 – Renault VESTA

A short series in which we look at three small eco-concept cars from the 1980s and see what became of them.

Renault VESTA – look through the rear side window, and one can see that it is one of those styling mules where each side elevation has a differing design (Source: All Car Index)

Today, we turn our attention to Renault’s vision for a compact car designed to do 120mpg (2.35l/100km), the 1983 VESTA.

In its February 1984 edition, Car Magazine went into some detail about what it reported would become the new Renault ‘R3’ in an article, entitled ‘Towards 2000’. This edition of the magazine is memorable for having scoop photos of the Kadett E / Astra MkII on the front cover, the car brightly illuminated at night on the road, showing that GM Europe’s compact offering was going to Continue reading “Eighties Eco-Concept Marvels: Number 2 – Renault VESTA”

Eighties Eco-Concept Marvels: Number 1 – Citroën ECO 2000

A short series in which we look at three small eco-concept cars from the 1980s and see what became of them.

ECO 2000 in museum context (Source: Auto.cz)

I was an eighties teenager and consider that decade to have been influential on many aspects of the world today. After what seemed to me to have been the grim stagnation, complacency and listlessness of the seventies, the eighties saw the (sometimes painful and tragic) breaking of ties to the past and the search to replace them with future opportunities, especially in technological innovation.

Like myself at that time, I would argue it that was a decade which could be described as naïve, one in which political, economic, cultural and social ideals and principles still meant something. People who believed in those ideals and principles were prepared to Continue reading “Eighties Eco-Concept Marvels: Number 1 – Citroën ECO 2000”

Water Loving Feline

Putting out fires all over the place, Andrew Miles gets his paws wet. 

PANTHER number 1000 at its Stansted airport home. (c) Rosenbauer.com

Returning to our fire fighting friends, the equipment size notches up somewhat along with a combination of countries, companies once we add highly flammable flying machines into the equation.

First up, Boughton Engineering of Wolverhampton. Founded in Amersham 1897, their core products revolved around the agricultural and forestry industries, later incorporating larger transport solutions, which included the military. Boughton’s prowess grew as did the chassis required for such operations.

By the 1970s, the arrival of the jumbo jet and easier international travel led to concerns as large as the aircraft themselves had become. Sadly, this was also a time when aeroplanes had an unfortunate tendency to Continue reading “Water Loving Feline”

The Appliance Of Science

He’ll never sell any ice-creams going at that speed…

(c) e1group

School was never a favourite period of life for your author, but one aspect of physics lessons in particular remains lodged in the mind – the fact that water and electricity do not mix well. Therefore, as we career toward an electrical vehicular future, how do we go deal with the worst happening – an electrical fire caused by either malfunction or accident?

Today, Britain has over 23 million vehicles road-bound with around 400,000 propelled by some form of electricity. Exponential growth in the coming years will see these figures shift ever-upwards, so one hopes the manufacturers will Continue reading “The Appliance Of Science”