[45jim]

You can place your blame squarely on the Government in power, DND and PWGSC for the selection of the LSVW and the Iltis. In order to get Canadian content (i.e. jobs) it was decided to purchase the rights to produce vehicles domestically whenever possible if the production volumes warranted it. Sometimes it worked out, the MLVW and the HLVW were mostly successful but sometimes it didn't.

The Iltis was already long in the tooth (production wise) and there were few if any international sales left to be had so the rights were available. Same with the LSVW, no more orders forthcoming for Italy so they sold the license. Both of these vehicles were developed and manufactured by reputable companies (Audi and Fiat) and were relatively well engineered and soldiered on in those countries for a long time. However, they were developed to meet specifications that weren't ours and the "Canadianization" process is probably responsible for a good chunk of the problems. If they built them as they were designed they wouldn't have lasted any longer or been any better though, as they just weren't what we needed. The companies producing what we really wanted would only sell us finished goods and wouldn't allow our supply base to provide parts for their domestic contracts. It was a question of "find a way or do without".

Western Star was the winning bidder to manufacture the LSVW, they didn't design it. Blaming them is a waste, the Government wanted to put a major contract into BC and gave them a truck to build, so they built it. They had an excellent reputation in the heavy truck manufacturing business before being bought out by Freightliner. So its not like they couldn't build a good truck, they were given a truck to build and it had to include parts and pieces from Canadian companies as selected by DND and PWGSC. Most of the problems lie there.

I worked on the LUVW program with them where they tried to resurrect the LSVW on a four-door chassis to compete with the Hummer (vehicle of choice) and they tried extremely hard to improve the basic vehicle but the writing was on the wall, even though the project was DND funded and the final vehicle was not bad the confidence in the vehicle was so low that nobody got the LUVW. Eventually, the G-Wagen was bought to fill that role.

The problem with tagging on US (or anyone else's) procurements is that we get no jobs or experience for our money. We develop no suppliers, learn no new skills and do nothing for our economy, we can't even support the vehicles in the field. Even the requirement for the companies to spend 100% of the contract value in Canada doesn't help as they can spend over decades on sundry items like fasteners and just add a couple of layers of Quality Assurance testing to drive the price up and reduce their exposure.

We are capable of designing our own vehicles and we should. We could standardize the major drive train, suspensions and automotive components with the US to keep us interoperable. We could have bought half-assembled Hummers from the US (as Israel did) and develop our own bodies and versions to meet our specific needs. We should have tied up Jeep to make militarized TJ and JK's rather than Jankel in the UK, much better choice for the reserves than a GM pickup or a G-Wagen.

Sorry if its a rant here, but if the Government is going to spend money we should spend it here, but wisely. Sweden has always gone its own way, developing its own vehicles, ship and aircraft and does it with an economy 1/3 the size of Canada's.