Universal Power Drives

Founded in 1934 in Perivale by Tim Powell, Unipower manufactured 4x4 trucks and vehicles for forestry application, focusing on timber industry for England and overseas market. Unipower manufactured forester 4x4, a tractor for timber transportation with an L. Gardner and Sons Gardner 4LW a diesel engine, 10 speed transmission and weighing 4 tons. with their own trucks the company also started to sell modified versions of Dodge, Ford and Rootes trucks by adding multidrive axles to the existing vehicles one of the most notable was the commer six wheeler which was originally manufactured by Rootes and modified by Unipower. In the 1950s the company started to modify the British Motor Corporation (BMC) trucks like the Morris FJ.

Airport Crash Tender

In 1975 Chubb Fire & Security a British safety company built Unipower R 44 GPr-3000 an airport crash tender built on Reynolds Boughton truck 4x4 chassis powered by a Rolls-Royce petrol engine giving output of 275 hp with top speed of 120kmph. These were manufactured for Poland civil aviation.

In the 1990s, Unipower manufactured Airport crash tenders as MOD planned to replace the old fleet with two new vehicles Rapid Intervention Vehicle (RIV) a lightweight quick response vehicle and Major foam vehicle (MFV) for large fires and crashes. These vehicles were built with 20 years of duty in mind.

RIV was built on a 4x4 chassis with 2275ltr water tank and 275ltr foam tank powered by a turbocharged Detroit Diesel engine putting out 475 hp helping it achieve 120kmph top speed.

MFV was built on a 6x6 chassis 5600ltr water tank and 680ltr of foam tank, this one was powered by a Caterpillar diesel engine putting out 700 hp.