Dennis F12 Fire Engine

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Dennis Specialist Vehicles Ltd was a major British coachbuilder and manufacturer of specialised commercial vehicles, based in Guildford, Surrey.

Fire appliances were the mainstay of the company and these became a very familiar sight around the towns and cities of England from as early as 1908. Other major product lines were buses, dustcarts and airport service vehicles. The firm had a long history, Dennis Brothers Ltd being founded in 1895 by brothers John and Raymond Dennis who originally manufactured bicycles under the ‘Speed King’ name, which they sold from their shop, the Universal Athletic Stores, in Guildford.

They made their first motor vehicle in 1898, and in 1899, their first car (although it was never produced or sold). At the turn of the century John Dennis built the Rodboro Buildings, the first purpose-built motor vehicle factory in Britain, to manufacture vehicles in the centre of Guildford, producing the first bus in 1903 and the first fire engine in 1908. Cars soon took second place and it is doubtful if any were made after about 1915. In 1913 Dennis moved to a larger factory at Woodbridge, on the outskirts of Guildford.

The 'F Series' of fire engines went into production in 1946, with a variety of different models, the most familiar being the F7 and the F12, the latter, introduced in 1950, being the more popular with a larger production run. Soon after its introduction, most English Fire Brigades had ordered the F12, Middlesex being the best customer with 21 of them. For lightness, the F12 body had all aluminium panels attached to a wooden frame. It was powered by a straight-eight B80 MkX 5.7-litre Rolls-Royce petrol engine producing 195bhp. This gave the machine a good turn of speed, achieving 60mph in about 45 seconds with top speed easily in excess of this.

The F12 was popular with the crews and considered the finest appliance of its day, particularly with its heated cab, a big improvement over other fire engines such as the Leyland. By the time the F12 went out of production in 1959, 336 examples had been built.

This Rolls-Royce straight-eight powered Dennis F12 was first registered to Somerset County Council in November 1953. It appears to have served in Taunton until the mid ‘70s when it was passed to B Passey & Sons in Benson Oxfordshire. It joined the Stondon Collection in 1997 and comes with a current V5C, original buff logbook and a comprehensive instruction book on the Dennis F2 and F12 Fire engines.

This lot will be available to view at Stondon Museum (SG16 6JN) on Friday 5th June. Although this vehicle will be offered for sale at Brightwells (HR6 0DE) it will need to be collected from Stondon.

Due to where the vehicle is currently stored, collection may not be possible for up to 4 weeks after the auction.