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Four tonne war hits boiling point
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• The British Army's 5,000vehicle, four-tonne truck contract is thought to have been won by Leyland Daf. As Commercial Molar went to press on Tuesday (27 June) a senior industry source hinted strongly that Leyland Daf has won the £125 million, five-year order against strong competition from Volvo and AWD.
The Ministry of Defence, committed to announcing the four-tonne decision before the end of June, refused to comment on Tuesday, with only three days to go to its deadline.
AWD, meanwhile, reaffirmed its commitment to buying back — on a one-forone basis — more than 5,000 existing British Army fourtonne trucks this week, saying that the company is prepared to guarantee £1,500 more per Bedford than is being raised at auction.
In April, AWD boss David Brown said that it was a mark of his confidence in securing the contract that the company would buy back more than 5,000 army Bedfords, and also buy back all of the new AWD four-tonners in 1999, at the end of their 10year life cycle.
However, trade union leaders at the Leyland Daf factory in Lancashire were confident this week that their company had won the four-tonne deal, and they said that the plant would quickly hit full capacity when the new workload was introduced.
The scale of the contract can be judged by the financial com mitments which AWD and Leyland Daf have been boasting of recently. Former Leyland Daf chief-executive George Simpson said at the turn of the year his company was "determined to win" the four-tonne business because it could not afford to lose it — Leyland Daf has invested more than £3 million in developing the four-tonne unit.
AWD, on the other hand, says that its buy-back offer will bring an additional £8 million of revenue to the MoD coffers, with a further £8 million at least when the new "ML" trucks are bought back 10 years hence. AWD says that it has ready-made markets overseas for refurbished Bedford four-tonners, probably with the armed forces in the Third World.
Should Leyland Daf win the order, the trucks will be built at the Leyland Assembly Plant with more than 92% British components.
It shares some components with the Leyland Daf Roadrunner. These include an extended version of the Roadrunner cab and the same 108kW (145hp) turbocharged 310 engine, driving through a five-speed allsyncromesh gearbox and twospeed transfer box to axles (specially developed at Leyland Oaf's Albion plant in Glasgow).
Volvo Trucks (Great Britain) said this week that it had heard no decision, either officially or unofficially from the MoD. 0 The Saudi Arabian army wants to buy 5,000 four-tonne trucks from Britain, and is likely to buy whatever the British Army specifies.
Fears that AWD may find it difficult to meet the Saudi Arabian delivery schedules could have tilted the MoD decision in Leyland Des direction.