No matter how heavily you think you rely on your vehicle, it’s a pretty sure bet that Andrew Horwood relies on the Toyota HiLux even more.
In fact, he relies on all 80 of them. That’s how many examples of Toyota’s iconic workhorse are in the fleet Andrew supervises. And they’re all kept very busy.
As Project Officer, Light Fleet, at the South Australian Country Fire Service (CFS), Andrew’s vehicles are responsible for all parts of the organisation’s duties, from community engagement to emergency response.
“We have three types of vehicle uses,” he says. “We drive operational-response vehicles fitted out with radios and emergency lighting, and they’re used to attend meetings and training, but they’re also used operationally, attending incidents and delivering personnel to incidents.
“In tandem with that, we have logistics vehicles, which are used as transport vehicles or for any equipment that needs transporting, and we have command vehicles, which are used for incident response, whether its a motor vehicle accent or a major fire or flood incident, such as the ones being experienced right now.”
When it came to a major overhaul of the CFS’s fleet back in 2017, Andrew says he reviewed several models before settling on the HiLux, which he says delivered capability, comfort and dependability, and was more fit-for-purpose for the challenging, off-road terrain his team would be sometimes forced to cross in order to get closer to a fire incident.
Why does the HiLux feature so heavily in the fleet? For the exact same reason they feature so heavily on Australian driveways, properties and worksites. We all rely on our vehicles, it’s just that the stakes can be higher in Andrew’s line of work, and so a dependable vehicle is even more important.
“Fires don’t conveniently happen along major highways. They’re often in quite isolated areas, which means our vehicles have to traverse rough terrain in order to get close to the fire ground to provide logistics and intelligence,” he says.
“The HiLux is an ideal combination of a reliable and robust workhorse combined with a comfortable, safe and thoroughly enjoyable-to-drive vehicle.”
And if you think that sounds like a hard life for a vehicle, you’re right. Driving closer to major fires and floods than anyone would normally ever want to means life can be challenging for a HiLux assigned to the emergency services.
But Andrew has discovered another perk of HiLux ownership — which also explains why you see so many of them whenever you leave Australia’s cities and venture into the remote outback — and that’s durability and longevity.
“We still have a HiLux in our fleet which is a 2004 model. We normally draw aged vehicles from our fleet, but it’s still a reliable and robust vehicle and so it’s still being used,” Andrew says.
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