For Sale: Wapiti tracked vehicle

[Bob Phillips]

Originally Posted by Marc Montgomery

Bob- I remember there was a Wapiti parked in a small display area just inside the Longue Pointe base in east end Montreal..along with a couple other older MVs and an old M-109 howitzer. I remember thinking at the time it was a fairly big snow machine...at the time I had never seen one before.... This would have been late 1990;s?
When i finally found out what it was, I went back to Longue Pointe, but it was gone although the M-109 was still there.
No idea where it went...no one seems to know.

Here (I hope) are pictures of the surviving Wapiti, unless another turns in Quebec. Thank you for that lead Marc.

I bought this vehicle 30 plus years ago to save it from being scrapped. I did not know much about it at that time and it has only been through the assistance of members of this forum that I have been able to put together a more complete history of this vehicle. I would like to share just a few of the basic details with you.

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[Bob Phillips]

So this vehicle was one of 3 prototypes authorized for development on Nov. 3 1947 by the Canadian military(AEPC). It is a 2.5 ton oversnow vehicle and was approved along with a similar 3/4 ton version (3 prototypes also) called the BEAVER Does anyone have pics of the Beaver?

Planning and construction began at General Motors in Set. 1948 with an initial allotment of $120,000 in funds. By July 1949 the contract with GM was terminated with only about 10% of the project being completed. This was done because GM was not seen as being very cooperative in this project,on a number of fronts including the fact that GM refused to deal with outside suppliers seeing them as competitors.This meant only GM parts would be used in the project which was not an acceptable option. In August 1949 the contract was awarded to the Ford Motor Company who built the machines at cost but with a 7.5% fee attached as their profit margin.

The vehicles has a 194 HP Fageol bus motor but unlike bus engines these were cast of aluminium. Cost per motor $6000 each. A variety of standard transmission were tried but the final version is one supplied from England, a Wilson preselect (semi automatic) transmission of the type used in buses.

[Bob Phillips]

The gearbox was ordered through Leyland Montreal.The vehicle has an airshifter which allows you to preselect each gear a bit like a Ferret car. The controlled differential was a custom designed and built but seems very similar to the M24 type diff in a Chaffee. Most major suspension components were made of aluminium & magnesium to reduce weight as is the hull and rivetted aircraft style body. The vehicle is rear engined with the diff in the front.

The first vehicle was delivered to DND in Dec 1952 while the last two were completed May 1953. Following extensive testing a number a material failures become apparent- the lighweight components, support brackets etc in the suspension were not up to the task. Even after a redesign the support brackets were ultimately made of stronger ferrous metals. With its hi compression engine starting and running in cold climates was a challenge and by the time the compression ratio was lowered the engine was deemed to be underpowered for the vehicle. The final recommendations for the vehicle included the installation of a 200-250HP V8 engine with an automatic transmission. This of course never occurred.

There were hope among the DND officials that the US would be interested in this oversnow vehicle but instead they went ahead with their own version ( the OTTER) which must have cost even more to develop and build.One of the documents I located suggest that a Continental air cooled engine (as per OTTER) would cost $22,000 each!! When the project finally concluded the total cost for developing and building the 3 Wapiti prototypes was $1,250,000.00. Don't forget that this was 1952-53 when you could buy a nice middle class home for a few thousand dollars!

This is a brief overview of what I have found. Please add any comments, pictures or information you might have to this story.

[Bob Phillips]

The 3 Wapiti prototypes vehicles were identified ( as were all MVs at the time- is this correct?) with a 7 numbers, the first 2 indicating year and last 5 identifying specific vehicle. There had been speculation in a previous post about the number on this vehicle vs one pictures posted by Ed Storey. The 3 prototypes (beginning with Ford VIN numbers W-101, W-102, and W-103) were numbered 52-92506, 52-92511 and 52-92512 respectively.

This was a large vehicle 19"3" long, 11'3" wide & 8'4" high. With a payload of 5000 lbs it grossed out at 23,500 pounds. This weight was evidently too heavy for many of the early components. While a tremendous effort was put into reducing the weight of the vehicle it was still too heavy for the magnesium and aluminium alloy components in the redesigned lightweight Muskrat suspension system (saving 360lbs per vehicle). There were also spring failures and problems with the aluminium case in the final drive. While many of theses problems were corrected by 1954 it was beginning to be apparent that there would be a limited role for machines as large as the Beaver or the Wapiti. Issues relating to air portability are mentioned a number of times in the correspondence.

When all done it was an expensive project but had many positive features: heated crew compartment with large accessible cargo type doors, double layered windows to reduce frosting, tow capability, radio installations in at least one prototype and a large cargo compartment for men or materials.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Bob, great background info on a rare vehicle.

I took the liberty merging your posts in the Penguin MkII thread with your earlier thread on the Wapiti, so all the available info on this vehicle can be found in one place.

Hanno

[charlie fitton]

Looks like a guy could live in there...

[maple_leaf_eh]

Originally Posted by Bob Phillips

...

There were hope among the DND officials that the US would be interested in this oversnow vehicle but instead they went ahead with their own version ( the OTTER) which must have cost even more to develop and build.One of the documents I located suggest that a Continental air cooled engine (as per OTTER) would cost $22,000 each!! When the project finally concluded the total cost for developing and building the 3 Wapiti prototypes was $1,250,000.00. Don't forget that this was 1952-53 when you could buy a nice middle class home for a few thousand dollars!

...

And I get the height of nationalist indignance heaped on me when I say the AVRO Arrow was too wretchedly expensive for the size of the defence budget of the day. Ditto for the Bobcat.

[Colin Alford]

I have found some Wapiti footage here:

http://images.nfb.ca/images/pages/en...84&docAttId=34

The footage starts at 3:00 and ends at 4:15.

The caption states that there is also footage of the Beaver but I don't believe that is the correct ID of the second vehicle. Footage starts at 8:35 until end of film.

Colin

[colin jones]

What a wonderful project. Am I right to assume that no one bought it to restore and it's still sitting in the same place. Such a shame it's not in Australia as that's a project I would love to do.

[Bruce Parker (RIP)]

Originally Posted by Colin Alford

I have found some Wapiti footage here:

http://images.nfb.ca/images/pages/en...84&docAttId=34

The footage starts at 3:00 and ends at 4:15.

The caption states that there is also footage of the Beaver but I don't believe that is the correct ID of the second vehicle. Footage starts at 8:35 until end of film.

Colin

Great footage. The Wapiti driver seems to have botched the corner first try.

That would be a great restoration project but I bet a bugger for getting parts and, well, it's so BIG!!!

[Kirk Armitage]

That would definitely be quite a project . Bob you should have unveiled this diamond in the rough 20 years ago, when we were all younger ! Bob, I posted a pic and mentioned its listing here, on a snow cat forum I belong to. There should be some interest , this machine needs to be saved.
K Armitage