NUBIAN MAJOR PERFORMS WELL BOTH ON AND OFF THE ROAD
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completed as effectively if the high ratio had been in use because at no time was first gear employed.
Following the off-the-road running I was able to take the Nubian Major on to main roads and found it a very pleasant vehicle to drive, Performance was extremely good as would be expected with 300 b.h.p. pulling 19-5 tons gross and, in fact, the impression given was of driving a normal road vehicle in the unladen condition. It was not posSible to carry out any extensive road testing, but a series of acceleration tests were carried out, the most important aspect of hue/crash tender being to get to the scene of the fire in the shortest possible time. Really excellent figures were obtained, these being: 0 to 20 m.p.h., 8-4 seconds; 0-30 mph., 15.4 seconds, and 0-40 m.p.h., 28-7 seconds. Equally good figures were obtained for direct-drive acceleration, these being 10-20 m.p.h., 15 seconds; 10-30 m.p.h., 36 seconds, and 10-40 m.p.h., 50.5 seconds. The throughthe-gear times were helped by the very easy gear change, full-throttle changes being possible as the only work involved was movement of theselector lever in its gate. When making full-throttle chances, however, there was a tendency to snatch as the gear came in and this would not be beneficial to the transmission. Very smooth upward changes could be Made by pausing in the neutral position and allowing the engine revs to die down. When changing down I found the best way was to keep the throttle pedal down and pause again in neutral.
The power steering on the Nubian Major was another factor that made the vehicle feel light to drive and the design was found to be good with no dead feeling" and a very positive response. Road conditions did not allow full braking tests, but in spite of the fact that the vehicle had been running axle deep in water for much of the day, braking performance was good and maxi mum pressure stops from 20 m.p.h. on the wet and greasy road did not result in the vehicle moving out of its line. The Nubian Major has, of course, a split system and the front wheel brake units are large by many standards-47 in, by 4-25 in.--and this should give good results at higher speeds,
Fuel consumption figures do not have much importance with vehicles used as fire and crash tenders. Thornycroft has, however, carried out consumption runs and over 200 miles of normal 'roads a , figure of 6 m.p.g. at 34-5.m.p.h. average speed was obtained, which is reasonably good. The Nubian Major showed when at Bagshot that it had excellent gradient ability and on tests carried . out by E.V.R.D.E., it showed it could stop and restart on a better than 3 in I incline.