Multidrive & AWD trucks, what happened?

[The Beard]

Was watching some You Tube videos of Soviet era 8X8 tractor units and it got me thinking (takes a lot to do that nowadays). Bedford trucks who made medium trucks for the British army for decades were sold by GM to a small engineering firm based in the North East of England called Multidrive. They specialised in articulated dump trucks and were sold under the Caterpillar banner. They carried on making Bedfords under the AWD (All Wheel Drive) name. My question is, Multidrive made a number of cross- country heavy articulated trucks. They had a 6 wheel tractor unit with a double drive rear bogie, but importantly all 2 or 4 wheels of the trailer were also driven giving a 8X10 or 6X10 configuration and pulled either a water/fuel tanker or a flat trailer that could carry 2 APCs. I'm pretty certain they were used in the first Gulf War and I think the French army also had some. But why do they seem to have disappeared from view? The Oshkosh seems to have been chosen in preference.

[James]

That question has been weighing heavily on me for some time as well. Unfortunately, my schedule doesn't allow me time at the moment to research this topic and find out where exactly these vehicles have disappeared from view, but I encourage you to research this and let us know.

[Dave242]

Any help ??

http://www.janes.com/articles/Janes-Military-Vehicles-and-Logistics/Multidrive-8-x-6-20-000-litre-bulk-fuel-tanker-United-Kingdom.html

Dave

[The Beard]

Any help ??

http://www.janes.com/articles/Janes-Military-Vehicles-and-Logistics/Multidrive-8-x-6-20-000-litre-bulk-fuel-tanker-United-Kingdom.html

Dave
It was indeed Sir. Many thanks. Not sure what happened to the orginal Bedford TM cabbed units. Anything else you come across will be gratefully received.

[Dave242]

Found out a bit more about them

Multidrive are still about, although they seem to be concentrating on agricultural stuff and the trailers are still made, under licence, in South Africa

Reason why they are not used by the Army now is they were "c**p" breaking down all the time and with the amount the army ordered it was better just to take them out of service and replace them with the Oshkosh model when the MoD ordered a lot of them back in 2003

No news on the Bedford's used to pull them yet

Dave

[The Beard]

Found out a bit more about them

Multidrive are still about, although they seem to be concentrating on agricultural stuff and the trailers are still made, under licence, in South Africa

Reason why they are not used by the Army now is they were "c**p" breaking down all the time and with the amount the army ordered it was better just to take them out of service and replace them with the Oshkosh model when the MoD ordered a lot of them back in 2003

No news on the Bedford's used to pull them yet

Dave
I was aware of the Foden units from their website and that they'd sold a lot of the business to Caterpillar who they designed and built articulated dump trucks for, but I didn't know they were having some models built in SA. I also didn't know about the reliability problems. Maybe that was because of the relatively short development period.