Had a chance to head over to metro south last night and have a look at this, and get some pics (although only with a mobile phone camera)
Having now seen this up close, i'd say the concept is good, especially for road crash units. However this prototype seems to have been built around a standard kit for tasmania and alot of our gear either doesn't fit properly or has massive amounts of space left.
To start with the cab, no way is it a 7 seater, 5 maybe and the guy in the front centre is going to spend a lot of time kicking the comms gear. The driver is going to turn the siren on every time he goes into 3rd gear, and you just about need to lput your elbow out the window to drive. However there is more leg room than in the canters many units have and the seats are more comfortable.
the ladder mount ion the roof is really flimsy as is the locking handle, and god knows how a 3 stage is going to fit on that thing.
The well for the light mast is one great bucket that won't drain properly unless its half full and the mast itself isn't particulary stable and doesn't seem to hold air pressure that well. The lights themselves are only 500w i think and have exposed bubbles so good odds on popping a few of them.
The body itself is quite compartimitzed but nothing we had a metro south seemed to quite fit or we in strange places. For example the pole saw is internally stored and doesn't sit on the base of the compartment so it can roll around and if it leaks will leak all over the back locker, there is a tray front drivers site that is supposed to be for the genarator but it has this stupid latch at the back with a genarator on the tray you can barely reach and the genni and fuel are next to exposed wiring (see pic 005). The body really needs some shelving or a storage system for small hand and power tools so you don't have 5 cases rolling around in the compartments. There are also several compartments for things like the stokes litter, brooms etc that are about 6f off the ground.
the swaging on the wires for some of the doors in the bottom lockers is really poorly swaged especially the one that is supposed to be a step for the top ladder mount. Even simple things like cutting off zip ties on cable bunches hasn't been done. Hoever there are several roll out trays mounted which would be usefull if they are fitted in the right areas.
Also it isn't fitted with a towbar at the moment which means you can take a load of timber to a shoring job for example.
Overall i thought the concept of the unit was good but the implementation still needs alot of work before we getting them out on the job. hoever i don't see how it will ever replace the rescue trucks as you simply can't get enough stuff onto it without making it way overweight. As a replacement for the leased 4wd fleet it may be a good option
