Toronto Fire Chiefs Drive Hybrids
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 09.12.06
Remembering the events of five years ago, none of us would begrudge our firefighters a nice ride; we are pleased to see that the Toronto Fire Services chief is tooling around in a Highlander hybrid. It won in a competitive bidding process that looked at performance, ground clearance and versatility. They are almost off-the-shelf- a custom Toronto colour (is not fire engine red the same all over?) and "a set of very subtly-integrated strobe lights built into the roof rack, grille, side pillars and rear lamps: at night, the thing lights up like a Christmas tree, and is visible from very far away, even though the LED units are actually tiny. " TFS liked the fuel consumption stats and the fact that it was not a beefed up heavy duty sedan but an off-the-shelf car that was strong enough to take it. Sez Chief Stewart: ""All of the equipment we've chosen is here so we can respond faster and work safer." ::Canadian Driver
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Is not fire engine red the same all over?
If only. The main reason that police cars are no longer blue is that manufacturers tried to lock departments into using their cars by making 'special' blue paint for police vehicles that other manufacturers would have to match in order to not have a fleet of mismatched cars.
Fire departments can get away with making manufacturers match the paint on engines because the vehicles are so customized to begin with. The cost of getting a custom job on a single chief's vehicle may be manageable, but I still see a lot of chief's cars that are just white with decals.