We'll end with a photo of the fire engine in "Continental" mode, as it were, with the detachable hose reel fitted and looking, in my opinion, very much like the real thing. I've never come across this ste up of hose reels in the UK and I can't recall seeing a USA fire engine with this arrangement and that's why I call it "Continental" mode. I've seen photos of both French and German fire engines with one or two hose reels mounted at the rear and I believe that this is used where the fire engine is not fitted with a water tank and so relies on the mains hydrant for this.
I've made this an extensive review of the 4821 as when it first appeared I was very critical of it because of the lift-up compartment covers and I said I wouldn't buy one. Having bought one, I have to reverse my opinion - it is a very good model of a fire engine, probably Playmobil's best in some ways. The lack of the working roller shutters of the 3880 is a pity, but I can see that for this system to have been used and offered the level of storage space that the 4821 does, the finished item would have had to be bigger both in height and width, more complicated to make and assemble and certainly more expensive andm maybe out of scale. I would have liked a proper system for storing the ladders on the roof, but maybe that will come in an accessory set in 2011 or 2012 (after all, the 3880 in a later re-incarnation was given this feature). I could do without the blue printed area on the sides to the rear of the cab as that seems to be a purely German livery feature and could surely have been dealt with through the use of stickers. Printed on, it can probably be dealt with by rubbing/polishing it off, but that would take a lot of work and may end up in damaging the finish; maybe the answer is to produce my own stickers in red if I feel it important enough. The fact that there is only one crew member and one reel of hose for two hose reel point towards attempts to keep costs and price down which is understandable in the present time. But overall, I give a big vote in favour. The question now is - how do I smuggle in another 2 4821s plus the new turntable ladder, 4820?
Oh, and for those interested it represents a Scania with Rosenbauer bodywork, a strange choice as I would have expected Playmobil to choose a German vehicle manufacturer, maybe MAN.
And about those lift-up shutters, there's always the mystery Greek fire engine attached which seems to use just such a system.