Quote:My bet is that they sell a bunch of these. I had first hand knowledge of a department where I used to work that loved their Sutphen pumper but when it was time to replace their rear mount platform they had to have another rear mount. I suspect a lot of people fall in that same boat. For a lot of reasons a mid mount isn't for everyone. Sutphen has a pretty loyal following and I think this may open them up to some new places as well.A couple years ago when my department started looking at replacing a pumper that had been in a wreck, Sutphen was one of 2 brands at the top of our list. While talking to vendors we got the ok to explore a new quint also as the current one was coming due for replacement. We had a strict budget window and knew that getting both units from the same manufacturer would probably offer the most bang for the buck.
This pretty much knocked Sutphen out of the running since we wanted another rearmount. The mid-mount design wasn't necessarily a problem in and of itself, but the inability to enclose the ladders was. Since that was a specific design feature we were looking to include in the new pumper, selecting an aerial that lacked that feature didn't make much sense.
I haven't really looked at Sutphen's initial rearmount offering too closely to see if it fit our need and not sure if we would have purchased a brand new design like that if it had been available, but it probably would've kept them in the conversation longer.
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