Smashing the gravel road atop Mount Seymour in British Columbia, an oddball in Canadian military history did his best to crush the spines of passengers. This is Bombardier Iltis, an ugly duckling built in Quebec in the mid-1980s. It’s Canada’s version of Humvee: Martin Short versus Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Because of the short wheelbase and no compromise on passenger comfort, every pothole and washout is accompanied by bangs and clatter. Acceleration is at the bottom of the scale, but as the Iltis is at its final speed, a strong gust of wind blows through the bare metal cabin.
“Uh-oh,” said owner Helen Poon, glancing at the fuel gauge. It reads empty. Slowing down a bit, she gave it an almighty bump, and the needle nearly halved, as might have happened during WWII-era Hurricane Hawker while patrolling the English Channel. Iltis lunged forward on the gravel, annoyed but unstoppable.
On the road, the Iltis actually performs quite well, although the stopping performance or lack of drum brakes is alarming. Then again, you never carry a lot of speed. To park, you turn a knob on the end of the parking brake to pull up any slack spots in the road, then pull the lever. Fully, uh, deployed, leverage is more than a little rudimentary.
Iltis is the German word for a polecat, Mustela putorius, a European forest mammal that resembles a weasel, except for sucking. There are several subspecies, and this one belongs to the Volkswagen/Audi family.
In the early 1970s, the West German army issued a call to replace their main vehicle, Type 181 Mehrzweckwagen. Mehrzweck means multi-purpose, but readers may best know this car in civil form as Volkswagen Things. It doesn’t take much squinting to see the similarity between this slab-faced VW and this decommissioned Canadian soldier.
West Germany wanted a lot of capacity for its new military mule, but it had to be compact enough for European roads. The summary also indicated that it needed to be transported by helicopter, capable of carrying a payload of 1100 pounds, and able to traverse two feet of water.
At the time, Volkswagen had recently founded Audi by uniting the Auto Union group of companies under a single banner. Among those companies was DKW, which built the Model 182 Munga, the super rugged and extremely ugly successor to the Model 181 (Porsche even managed to build its own Model 181 replacement, the one Jagdwagen). VW tasked Audi engineers with updating the Munga platform, which includes a new all-wheel drive system and a 1.7-liter four-cylinder engine supplied by Volkswagen.
It’s worth noting here that this fun little out-of-the-way garden can claim to be directly responsible for things like Audi r8 and maybe even a Bugatti Veyron.
At the time Audi developed the Iltis, it was a company that primarily produced front-wheel drive vehicles. When Audi engineer Jörg Bensinger drove the Iltis as a support vehicle while doing winter testing in Sweden, he couldn’t help but notice that the military vehicle’s modest power easily outperformed passenger cars on the road. snow. The idea of Quattro all-wheel drive was then born.
The Iltis passed German military tests with ease, and Audi built and delivered more than 2000 of them in 1980. That same year, in order to attract the attention of the French military, Volkswagen sent four submissions to the Paris – Dakar rally. Here, Iltis triumphed, placing first, second and fourth, while the fourth man backed further in the yard but still successfully crossed the finish line.
Despite his somewhat ungainly appearance, Iltis’ abilities are anything but. Fully independent suspension at all four wheels; For the convenience of field service, each corner has many shared parts. On the road, the Iltis is rear-wheel drive and it doesn’t have a true low-range transmission. Instead, one of the five feed gears is labeled “G” for geländeor terrain and engages 7,603 sprocket gears. The front and rear differentials can also be locked as needed.
Although the 1.7-liter four-cylinder only makes about 75 horsepower, the Iltis is as ready off-road as Samuel de Champlain. In fact, it outperformed the Mercedes-Benz Geländewagen in military tests in Germany.
The French army was not shaken by the Paris-Dakar victory, but Canada appealed. The nucleus of this agreement is typical of the political outrage of Canada’s interprovincial politics. Essentially, Ottawa managed to shift production of Iltis to a Bombardier factory in Valcourt, Quebec.
With all sincere apologies to the Beastie Boys, Bombardier is now licensed to Iltis. The combination makes sense: Bombardier grew on the success of its founder’s go-anywhere snowmobiles and had an order from the Canadian military for the 1900 Iltises.
The first of these was built in 1983, at a staggering cost of about $60,000 (adjusted for inflation). To add insult to injury, Bombardier next signed a contract to supply the Belgian army with 2500 Iltises for about $38,000 each. The deal also includes persuading Bombardier to purchase $150 million worth of Belgian goods and services. When asked to explain why Canada has to pay more for Canadian-made military vehicles, a Bombardier official replied: “I guess you could say the Belgians are very good negotiators. “
As for any plans to sell a civilian version of the Iltis, the market simply isn’t there. Bombardier also failed to secure other overseas contracts and ended Iltis production in the mid-1980s. In total, less than 10,000 vehicles were built by both VW and Bombardier.
Today, the Canadian Army is equipped with Mercedes G-Luongs. Iltis served until the early 2000s, including in Afghanistan. Here, it has a reputation of being unfairly fragile. US military commanders examined the canvas doors of the 25-year-old VW and warned Canadians not to risk leaving the base. In fact, a Humvee or a G-wagen offers little protection against land mines.
In retirement, however, Iltis is enjoying something of a renaissance. The suspension is wobbly, but not really much worse than a modern Jeep, and this little machine is fun to drive. The Canadian owner group is very active, and since it’s a military surplus vehicle, you can sometimes find an Iltis for a cheap price. It’s like a budget-friendly miniature Unimoga G-wagen for those who don’t have a lot of G.
And beyond that, is a military machine without Call of Duty Humvee or Jeep cosplay, Bombardier Iltis is both rugged and friendly. Those are very Canadian attributes. Whaddya says, buds? Want to go play fer a rip?
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