Why do so many Americans hate European trucks?

Who cares? There is enough demand to make production viable.

 

Of course you drove that fire truck, so from your own experience you know it has a water bed handling.

 

Still won't answer, will you.

 

No, and do you know why? I made no claim what so ever that could logically lead to a stupid question like that. So I am under no obligation to answer that silly question, but that seems to be beyond your comprehension.

 

Wouldn't it be easier just to answer it?

 

All emergency vehicles in the Netherlands have a reflective striping. There's a trademark on that striping, so no one is allowed to copy it. Just today it was announced that the striping is going to change a bit, slight difference in the colour, wider stripes, and better reflecting.

Every service has its own colour and striping:

Ambulance:



Fire brigade:



Police:



Royal mounted police (military unit, military police and border control):





Royal army bomb squad:

 

Looks like a swat team to me.......

 

First of all, Tatra is a very small company. Just a few years ago, they produced over 1000 vehicles in one year for the very first time. I don't know what the plans of Terex were, but apparently the Tatra concept was appealing to them. It may well be that Terex realized that Tatra needed a new engine and a new cab, and that it would be far to expensive for Tatra to develop those for themselves. So that may have been the reason they stepped out. Later of course DAF was asked/chosen to supply cabs and engines. That made perfect sense, DAF doesn't offer off-road trucks, and Tatra doesn't offer 'normal' trucks. So you might say that Tatra complements DAF's product portfolio.

Navistar still offers military versions of the Tatra, but with an American engine and an Allison gearbox.

Tatra trucks are build under license in India, Azerbaijan, and Tatra just signed such a contract with the Chinese. Not bad for such a small company, don't you think?

What I like about Tatra? Very simple, before WWII they developed a brilliant way to hide all drive shafts, differentials etc. in a big central tube, protected from the elements. It's a modular concept, you can build a truck with as many axles as you like. And talking about axles, a Tatra has no beam axles, but swing axles. Except for the Pinzgauer and the Haflinger, no other trucks are build like this.

 

No, swat teams use armoured cars, not tracked vehicles. These are very old YPR-765 armoured vehicles, the army had many of them, but they are all replaced by now. They may be used during very serious riots, or anti-terror operations etc. The army has replaced them by the CV-90 and the Boxer, but those vehicles may not be appropriate for the mounted police.

CV90:



Boxer:

 

Actually Navistar lost its contract with the government about 5 years ago. They were having major reliability issues. And I like Navistar trucks, but they have slid backwards in the last dozen or so years.