ERF/HCB-Angus Pump Escape. English. 1968. Hampshire Car Body – Angus built over 6,500 pieces of fire apparatus during its 61 years of existence between 1933 and 1994. The firm built this rig for the fire service of Nottinghamshire. It served the town of Retford until its retirement around 1980.
It was eventually owned by Mr. And Mrs. Peter Eichorn, who donated the rig to the museum in August of 1998. The rig is built on an ERF chassis. ERF (E. R. Foden) is a major English builder of heavy duty trucks and buses.
It has a rear mount 750 gpm pump (with engineer panels on both sides of the truck), a 500 gallon booster tank, and capacity for about 1,000 feet of hose. Its Perkins V-8 diesel engine allows it to travel at well over 60 miles per hour, and its crew compartment can accommodate 7 firefighters. It’s also equipped with a Merryweather escape ladder which four men can remove from the rig, wheel into position, and extend to a length of 55 feet. Most of the rig’s body is made of wood with aluminum cladding. The red portions of the truck are fiberglass. This greatly reduces its weight.