For the love of fire trucks and military vehicles

By Ryan Standen

| 21 Dec 2025

Classic & Sports Car – Also in my garage: fire trucks and military vehicles

There’s a good chance that Warren Brown’s 1928 Dennis fire engine holds a lap record at Australia’s Eastern Creek International Raceway (now Sydney Motorsport Park).

In 2007 he lost a race against a friend’s 1949 AEC double-decker bus and, in doing so, he likely posted the slowest time ever recorded at the New South Wales circuit.

The risky face-off – the bright-red truck makes do with unassisted brakes, on the rear wheels only – wasn’t pointless, though.

Warren, who is also a cartoonist for Australia’s The Daily Telegraph newspaper, took the opportunity to create an audition tape for the Australian adaptation of Top Gear, and it landed him a role on the television show in 2008.

Warren Brown’s WW2 M3A1 scout car is parked next to his army Land-Rover, a Vietnam veteran

Today, he also owns an example dating from 1933, which is another one of the 70 Dennis 250s imported by the NSW government when they were new.

Warren can trace his love for these vehicles back to a family holiday in the 1960s, when he saw a rusty fire engine parked at a petrol station.

“I was only three, but I remember standing on the running board,” he says. “It had a big, brass radiator, separate headlights, all that sort of stuff – I marvelled at this thing.”

After buying his first fire engine, a chance encounter during a trip to the UK helped him learn more about Dennis vehicles Down Under.

Mementos from Warren Brown’s classic car adventures, including his run from Peking to Paris in a 1907 Itala

“Brooklands Museum had an exhibition at Silverstone,” he explains. “There was a lovely chap with a veteran car powered by a WW1 aircraft engine.”

Warren, keen to find out more about the 1907 Berliet-Curtiss racer, introduced himself to the owner.

When Warren mentioned his Dennis 250s, he discovered he was speaking to John Dennis, whose grandfather co-founded Dennis Brothers Ltd in Guildford.

The 1928 fire engine wasn’t the first vehicle in Warren’s collection.

When he was 24, he bought a 1942 Willys MB that he still owns today. “That was my daily driver for a while,” he says.

Warren later restored the SAS-style Jeep to such a standard that it achieved an award as the best of its kind in Australia.

“I really went to town on it,” he adds. “It has an original sundial and compass.”

One of Warren Brown’s Dennis fire engines helped him to land a job on Top Gear Australia

The goal is to have another attempt at restoring it, adding yet more authentic components, but Warren says it’s becoming more difficult to stand out from the classic concours crowd.

“In those days, most people who restored a WW2 Jeep simply painted it olive and put a star on the bonnet,” he remembers. “But I didn’t; it was as good as I could possibly do.

“Nowadays, if you’ve got a 1908 Ford Model T, you need to be putting 1908 air in the tyres!”

He would like to add some replica Vickers K machine guns, but Australia’s strict gun laws make it very difficult to purchase decommissioned weapons.

This SAS-style Willys MB Jeep was once a daily driver

Warren’s fleet of military vehicles also includes a Ford GPW, an M3A1 scout car, an ex-Australian Army Land-Rover that saw service in Vietnam and a massive, six-wheeled Canadian Military Pattern truck.

His other love is for motoring pioneers and long-distance adventures.

In 2007, he recreated the original Peking to Paris route in a 1907 Itala, alongside a Spyker, Contal three-wheeler and two De Dions.

More recently, he completed a five-month run from London to Melbourne in a 1925 Bean Fourteen, emulating Australian adventurer Francis Birtles’ 1927 expedition.

Tucked in a corner of Warren’s workshop is a Peugeot 403 that’s similar to the one in which Wilf Murrell and Allen Taylor won the 1956 Round Australia Trial.

Is this the inspiration for Warren’s next big trip? “I’m always looking for a new adventure,” he smiles.

Images: Simon Davidson

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