Thread: chev portee
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Old 07-08-06, 23:01
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David_Hayward (RIP) David_Hayward (RIP) is offline
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Default '40?

I believe that it would have been probably by the meeting that Dr Gregg mentions was held in December 1940 that settled on the new # 13 Cab. I believe that details of that meeting were sent on the 30th December 1940 to Ottawa.

I have studied the DND papers over some years and come to the conclusion that there were initially CKD shipments: 175 or 174 CKD + 1 fully built-up of say C15, F15, etc. and that by August 1940 Oshawa, and thus Windsor, had gone over to SKD production. Dr Gregg confirms that it was initially proposed that [presumably following on from the division of engineering design work], Ford would produce cabs, engines and powertrains [gearboxes, etc.], whilst GM would be responsible for chassis, axles and some bodies, in order to produce a standardised vehicle. We know from McKinnon Industries records that that company were requested by the DND to produce 4-wheel drive production vehicles.

We know that the CKD system was swiftly abandoned, because it was found that there were so many mismatches in delivered crates. Also, Oshawa had to report to Southampton on problems with cabs which had been found, presumably on those supplied as compoents by Fords. Further, on 8 August 1940, Lt. E.D. James in WO Carr’s department noted that Fords supplied 100% of their spare parts and those supplied to GM, and vice versa. This could lead to severe shortfalls and complications, and so he recommended that the lots of 100 units should be complete with all spare parts: in the case of Fords, all parts needed for those Fords and in the case of GM, all parts necessary for Chevrolets even though the parts were manufactured by the other Company. I believe, and may be wrong, that this was formalisied by the December 1940 meeting and then it took time for components to be sent through the system and used up. If you see that the earliest British contracts for CMPs were placed in June/July 1940, production commenced early September, and assembly commenced by January 1941, you can get some idea of the timescale. The Portees and C-GTs were covered by S/M 2028 and 2020/2028 respectively. We believe that 2029 was placed 21st August 1941, and this fits in with Novermber 1941 production dates on known Portees and C-GTs.

The dates of course coincide with the suggested '1941' as previously mentioned. This was of course just before the # 13 Cab came in at # 001524 which was in fact possibly the time that C8 production ended in late 1941. I don't know what the Ford cut-off was. To me it makes sense to use up cab parts for the # 12 cabs as the # 13 had been sanctioned months previously.
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