Oh, my! A rear-mount on a short wheelbase. We tried that in Denver back at the turn of the century: HME 1871-SFO chassis, 1250gpm pump and 500 gallons of water. 120-ish inch wheelbase, which made the thing incredibly maneuverable. Problem was, with the weight of the pump entirely behind the rear axle, the rig became unsteerable if the tank was empty--you'd turn the wheel and nothing would happen. None of the engineers at Central States thought that might be a problem when they designed the rig, and nobody noticed until it was actually built and being road-tested before delivery. They actually had to pull the body, cut the frame behind the cab to add a 24" extension, build a compartment/crosslay module to fill the gap, and add a 24" front bumper with a booster reel on it to get some weight over the front axle. It helped but that thing was still sketchy to drive. The irony is, the original concept was to create the perfect compact pumper for city use but, by the time everything was said and done, it wound up having roughly the same wheelbase and overall length as a standard midship engine, which is probably why DFD abandoned the design after taking delivery of the initial two units. We called ours the "Ice Cream Truck" while it was running out of 25s before replacing it with a more traditional Pierce Velocity in 2013, and somehow it remained in service in one capacity or another until 2018. Considering Rosenbauer now owns the old Central States, you'd think they would've learned their lesson through this fiasco.

This is a neat design. I haven’t seen anything like the beaver tail attack lines before.

The VA still has some fire departments??? All of the VA fire stations out her in Oregon closed a LONG time ago. Super nice rig, but don't be surprised if it's sold at auction when the VA shuts the doors for good.

Nice Engine