Supermassive 8×8 Articulating Off-Road Fire Truck Is a Surprising Marketplace Find
Its Oshkosh chassis was originally developed for the U.S. Marine Corps.
Facebook Marketplace never ceases to surprise me. You can shop for anything on Marketplace, from power tools, to furniture, to cars, and even massive 8x8 articulating off-road fire trucks. So in the same place that you can buy someone's sweat-stained VR headset, you can also buy this 1990 Rosenbauer DA-1500 fire truck.
The Rosenbauer DA-1500 is actually based on the Oshkosh Mk.48 LVS, a transport vehicle originally designed for the United States Marine Corps. in the 1980s. The Mk.48 was immensely useful for the U.S. Marines, thanks to its eight-wheel drive capability, impressive turn radius, and versatility. Those same attributes made it perfect for firefighting duty where normal fire trucks simply cannot go. So Rosenbauer, the Austrian firetruck builder, took a handful of Mk.48 chassis in the '80s and turned them into DA-1500 off-road firetrucks.
As you can see, the DA-1500 has eight massive wheels, with two selectable drive modes (4x8 or 8x8) and a two-speed transfer case. To give it even more off-road prowess, the DA-1500 has a 46-degree front approach angle, a 50-degree rear departure angle, and a 60-inch wading depth. Its articulating body and center yaw steering also make it much more maneuverable than you'd expect a 36-foot-long truck to be. There isn't much terrain that can stand in the way of a DA-1500.
What's under the hood that can move a nearly 25,000-pound vehicle? A Detroit Diesel V8 that makes 540 horsepower, which pairs with a four-speed Alison automatic transmission. Its total load capacity, curb weight included, is 63,800 lbs. While it isn't quite Land Train-big, the DA-1500 is absolutely enormous and takes 40 seconds to reach 50 mph.
Being an off-road firetruck, the DA-1500 needs to be able to put out fires in the wilderness, without a fire hydrant (though it has a fire hydrant hook up), so it's capable of holding 1,500 gallons of water on board. All of that water-holding capacity means there's only enough room aboard the DA-1500 to carry two crew members.
According to the seller, this specific 1990 DA-1500 has only had two previous owners and originally cost $1.2 million. The current asking price is $120,000, which actually seems pretty cheap, all things considered. I'm not sure who's spending Porsche 911 money to buy an off-road fire truck on Facebook Marketplace but whoever does will be unstoppable.
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