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Morita Holdings Corp has been awarded a 2011 IDEA Gold Award - the highest possible award - in the Commercial and Industrial Products category for its forest firefighting concept vehicle. The International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) are the preeminent design awards in the United States.
The award-winning forest firefighting concept vehicle is a future prototype fire truck developed through the joint efforts of Morita's technical, development, and design teams. The goal of the concept vehicle's design is to solve many of the problems encountered when fighting large-scale forest fires, which occur frequently around the world.
Communication is critical when fighting forest fires because the fires tend to change direction moment by moment due to weather and forest conditions. The concept vehicle is outfitted with all the advanced data and telecommunication functions to serve as a local communications base as well as with the ability to navigate through rough roads and fight fires while on the move. And because it is difficult to locate water sources in the midst of a forest fire, it is equipped with a compressed air foam system (CAFS) developed by Morita. Using only a small amount of water, CAFS gives the vehicle superb fire extinguishing capability.
In awarding the IDEA Gold Award, the judges praised the design of the forest firefighting concept truck: "The wildfire truck illustrates the power of a bold, refined prototype to test innovative thinking by richly probing a market space with a visceral, hands-on experience of the features and brand," they said in a statement.
© JCN Newswire
14 Comments
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electric2004
Are the tires fire-proof?
There is so much glass, does not this allow the heat in?
ihavegreatlegs
I show people the door when they walk into my business with this line of bull
gogogo
It looks cool but useless, people would die in that, there is no protection from heat
NetNinja
I just checked out their website. This vehicle is awesome. Expect we'll see it in a movie someday.
gogogo
I love how the drive shaft is fully exposed, hit 1 rock and your doomed... Unless your fighting a forest fire with paved roads this thing aint going to cut it
John Cooper Ray
It could use a modified snowplow, or even a grapple on the front
nath
With so much electronics systems on board, are they all hardened against extreme temperatures? Watch some poor Japanese firefighter drive into a conflagration confidently, only to have everything fail and melt around him.
electric2004
Looking at their standard products,
<www.morita119.com/en/fire_engine/ladder/turn_table.html>
one can notice the Mercedes Benz star. For the airport fire trucks MJ-12f, engines from Iveco or Deutz are used.
These models, MJ-14F, MJ-12F, MJ-6F look realistic and seem to be well designed for their job at the airport.
However this concept vehicle looks more like the Tomy car hyper rescue series.
wanderlust
Concept and idea are the key phrases here...
papigiulio
Gah people, of course they wont design a cabriolet for a forest firetruck. This truck is completely fireproof it even has a laser in the middle window for shooting squirrels from trees.
tranel
"The wildfire truck illustrates the power of a bold, refined prototype to test innovative thinking by richly probing a market space with a visceral, hands-on experience of the features and brand,” they said in a statement."
This text is a bit dull and unimaginative, lacks nuance somehow and not enough hyperbole. I think we need to add a few more adjectives:
"This stunningly designed, groundbreaking and paradigm-redefining wildfire truck illustrates the power of a bold, refined and stylish prototype to test innovative thinking by richly and seductively, yet with the subtle finesse and verisimilitude conveyed though sleek, eye-catching curves, probing a market space with a visceral, hands-on experience of the features and brand,” they said in a statement."
nandakandamanda
LOL at the comments.
Come on, folks, just enjoy the thing...
PS How come Japan rarely gets any decent forest fires?
Foxie
This is such a beautiful fire truck. I used to collect miniature cars as a kid, still am sometimes nowadays and I would love to have this one.
VicMOsaka
gogogoJul. 15, 2011 - 10:39AM JST
I love how the drive shaft is fully exposed, hit 1 rock and your doomed... Unless your fighting a forest fire with paved roads this thing aint going to cut it
gogogojul, I would say your mechanical knowledge is limiited. The driveshaft on this vehicle is in the same position as any other type of truck. It's just that you can see it on this particular vehicle whereas in other trucks, the body sides hide it. It is obviously a 4wd vehicle so it has a very high ground clearance.