Nissan Patrol Ambulance 4x6

[jfarsang]

I couldn't find it via searching.

Has anyone heard of this thing ? Looks great !

Emergency Transport Technology | News and Links

Thursday 10 December 2009

Box Bodies are Back

Following in the wake of the highly successful bariatric box body ambulance, comes a raft of other box body designs for other ambulance applications. All use ETT's weight saving materials and designs.

The Nissan Patrol 4 x 6 was developed for Ambulance Service NSW as
a possible replacement for the Toyota Troopie and has been on the road
now for a few months. It has been well received offering, as it does, a
larger work platform than the Troopie ambulance.

4x4 variants of the same concept were also developed for BHP Billiton
and these vehicles are now in service and have had a good reception
on the mine sites in north WA.

Next in line is the box body to suit a Toyota Land cruiser cab chassis
and the Mercedes Sprinter cab chassis. Watch this space.

 

[winkosmosis]

4x6? Which axle is undriven?

 

[Haf-E]

4x6? Which axle is undriven?

The last axle is a "tag" axle - in the photo you can see it doesn't have a drive flange in the middle and that the front axle has a differential.

Tag axles don't work well off-road in my limited experience with them.

 

[RMP&O]

I am sure it is great for what it is designed for.

A lazy rear axle is only about carrying weight. Off-road it will be a big downfall. Turning radius on that truck will also be absurd. Othwerwise it could make a good overland truck.

IMHO better to just have a standard Patrol Ute with an overland bed on it.

 

[Matto]

Creative Conversions are just one of the shops here that specialise in that sort of thing:
http://www.creativeconversions.com.au/

RWV are the mob that are local to me, and one of the better shops in Aus:
http://www.rwvconversions.com/

Their bread and butter is converting wagons to utes (Pickups), with either chassis extensions or 6-wheel conversions. Not sure why they didn't make the ambulance a proper 6x6 - it's certainly possible.

As RMP&O has stated, lazy axles are just for carrying capacity, and have the downside of scrubbing out the rear tyres really quick. A proper 6x6 will chew rear tyres pretty quick as well, but at least you get the added drive benefits (not that there's a whole heap of benefit).

There was a company here that used to make Patrol and Landcruiser "SuperWagons" - they would extend the chassis on a normal 4x4 Patrol or Cruiser wagon, stick an additional driven axle under it, then graft in another section of body to the wagon so you ended up with a super-long, 7-seater 6wd wagon (with cargo space in the back). They did a really good job, and they looked like nothing else on the road. They never sold many though, and the company disappeared (along with it's website and all the photos) - I suspect the price was just too high.

I'm not sure what that article means by "box bodies are back" either - most of our ambulances and work vehicles are built like that. I guess they're referring to the city ambulances, most of which are converted Mercedes Sprinter vans. Most of the rural ambulances are Landcruiser or Patrol (4x4) utes with custom box bodies on the rear.

Thanks!
Matto