Dennis N-Type

The Dennis N-Type was a commercial vehicle introduced by Dennis Brothers of Guildford, later Dennis Specialist Vehicles, in around 1905, and it formed the basis of the company's early fire engines and trucks. The chassis was built from rolled steel channel, riveted and braced at appropriate points, with a sub frame on which the engine and gearbox were mounted. Fire engines on the chassis used a centrifugal water pump with a double-sided impeller, which balanced the axial force that a single-sided centrifugal pump produces, in place of the piston pumps favoured by other makers. Engines usually came from White and Poppe of Coventry, which Dennis bought in 1919. Most Dennis commercial vehicles used this chassis until newer designs arrived, the last being produced in the late 1920s, and some N-Types served with the British Army and the American Expeditionary Forces in the First World War.