Bison and Coyote armoured vehicles

[6][5] Leading this project was Colonel Roméo Dallaire, the Head of the Army's Armoured Vehicle Assessment and Procurement at the time, who was intent on purchasing 200 M113A3, the most recently upgraded variant of the M113 series, which the Canadian Forces were already using in the form of M113A1s and M113A2s.

[6] At the same time, Diesel Division General Motors Canada (DDGM) was nearing completion of LAV-25 production for the United States Marine Corps and was facing the potential of having empty production lines for a year at the Ontario Plant, as they had no additional contracts until 1990 and considered shutting down the plant during that time.

They cut off the troop compartment and added a large box on the rear half of the vehicle, which increased internal capacity.

DDGM secured the support of Michael Wilson, the Minister of Finance, as well as members of Mobile Forces Command Headquarters in Saint-Hubert, Quebec.

Engineers and executives of DDGM realized they would likely need the support of Dallaire to obtain the contract and decided that the way to win him over would be to build a full-scale prototype vehicle and present it to him.

[6] The engineers had little time to spare to produce a prototype of the vehicle, and began by starting with a LAV-25 that had been used in tests to judge if the LAV-25 could be airdropped from transport aircraft.

Similar to the small scale model, they began by cutting off the troop compartment while keeping the suspension, drive-train, and front half of the vehicle intact.

[6] The entire process to produce the prototype took eight days, after which the "Bison", as named by DDGM, was assembled, painted and ready to be shown.

It was considered to be a success, with Beatty coming on board with the idea, but stating that he would not force the army's hand to purchase the Bison over the M113A3.

[6] While the prototype had seemingly won over Beatty, Colonel Dallaire was not convinced and continued to support the M113A3 acquisition, which caused DDGM to send a lobbyist to Ottawa to work on him, making largely the same arguments as DDGM had before, that the Bison would be more cost efficient for operation by the reservists over the tracked M113A3, that the Bison did not face the same restriction for use on roads as the tracked M113, and that the Regular Force would simply reacquisition new M113s, possibly implying that DDGM likely knew that the Regular Force would appropriate the new vehicles for their own use, as they later did with the Bison.

[6][5] The Bison production version differs from the baseline LAV-25 by raising the height of the roof, removing the turret ring, placing a commander's cupola behind the driver, and incorporating a rail mount system in the cargo/passenger compartment to quickly change mission specific equipment.

The upgrades include improved engine power, new torsion bars, fittings for add-on armour, air conditioning, and the VRS respirator system for nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) defence.

Elevation and lead corrections are applied manually by the gunner using multi-stadia reticules in the day, thermal, and image intensification sights.

[11] The Coyote is powered by a Detroit Diesel 6V53T engine developing 275 horsepower (205 kW), and can reach speeds of 100 kilometres per hour (62 mph) on road.

Shortly after taking delivery of the vehicles, but before they were assigned to the Reserve units, all Coyotes were reassigned to the Regular Force.