Fire Truck Of The Day: January 3, 2011

Today's car of the day is Hot Wheels' 1967 ERF Simon Snorkel Fire Truck (former Corgi tooling).

ERF was a British truck manufacturer. Established in 1933 by Edwin Richard Foden, its factory in Sandbach, Cheshire was closed in 2002, and finished as a marque by owner MAN AG in 2007.

For more information and pictures of the real car please visit: ERF

Here's a Corgi re-release from Hot Wheels in the mid-1990s.  This is not an easy model to find references about, and the only site I found with any actual info indicated this model was first released in 1967 and withdrawn from the market in 1969.  If that's really the case, the tooling sat inactive for almost three decades before Hot Wheels dusted it off.

Established in 1933 by Edwin Richard Foden, who had left Foden - the company founded by his father - in late 1932 because he believed the future lay in diesel engines rather than steam power. Based in Sandbach, Cheshire, the company made their own chassis and cabs, originally with engines from Gardner, but later also Cummins, Perkins, Detroit Diesel and Caterpillar Inc..

ERFs used to be marketed under the Western Star badge in some countries such as Australia. It also built a specialist fire engine chassis, with a body built on by in-house company JH Jennings, later Cheshire Fire Engineering. However, when recession came in the early 1980's and production fell from a total output of 4,000 chassis per annum, CFE was sold to management to eventually become Saxon Sanbec.

The company was bought by Canadian truck maker Western Star in 1996. However, after PACCAR's purchase of both DAF Trucks and Leyland Trucks increased competitive pressure, and Western Star was approached by Freightliner Trucks corporation, the decision was made to sell ERF.

In 2000, ERF became part of MAN AG. MAN bought the company on the understanding that ERF was profitable, but it was found that its Financial Controller had for years been syphoning monies from the company, and resultantly MAN sued Western Star successfully in the British courts. Freightliner tried to sue Western Star and ERF's former auditors, but failed on technical grounds of corporate negligence.