[3][nb 2] Until the currency restrictions of the late 1940s, the Canadian automotive industry's output provided a major part of British Empire countries vehicles.

The United Kingdom's official History of the Second World War called Canada's war-time production of soft-skinned trucks, including the CMP class, the country's most important contribution to Allied victory.

[1] The rise to power in Germany of Hitler and the Nazi party in 1933 led to discussions in the mid-1930s between the British War Office and the Canadian Army concerning the possible production of military vehicles in Canada.

In any future conflict it was assumed that Canadian forces would again be tightly integrated with those of the Mother Country, and so it would be essential that Canadian-manufactured equipment be compatible with British standards and specifications.

Early in 1937, the Ford Motor Company of Canada and General Motors of Canada Ltd were each invited by the Canadian Department of National Defence to produce a Canadian prototype of a 15-hundredweight (cwt) ¾-ton U.S.) payload rating, light infantry truck similar to the Morris CS8 that had then been recently adopted by the British War Office.

In that year, Ford and General Motors of Canada Limited were invited to produce prototypes of a 6x4 medium artillery tractor derived from the British 6x4 Scammell Pioneer.

By 1939, plans had been prepared for the mass production in Canada of a range of military vehicles based on fairly strict CMP British specifications.

At the outbreak of World War II, Canada's large and modern automobile industry was shifted over to the production of military vehicles, outproducing Germany.

There then arose an urgent need to replace those losses and to provide new vehicles to equip the rapidly expanding armed forces of the Commonwealth.

[1][2] But of greater significance was the much larger number – more than 800,000 units – of trucks and light wheeled vehicles, produced by Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler of Canada.

[3][7] Thanks to a large pre-war automotive sector, Canada's great wartime achievement was to build more military trucks than the main Axis nations – Germany, Italy, and Japan – combined, matching the demands of mobile warfare in the age of blitzkrieg.

A smaller number of CMP trucks were assembled from Canadian-made chassis and parts, typically first built on Canadian production lines, then broken (knocked) down, crated, shipped overseas, and re-assembled in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa (2,600), India (9,500), Italy, and Egypt.

The CMP specification proved versatile, and it formed the basis of a wide variety of different truck types and even some armoured vehicles.

Furthermore, roughly 9,500 additional bare 4x4 CMP chassis were made, mainly for conversion to armoured cars and other vehicles in Allied countries.

CMP trucks were adapted after the war for a variety of civilian roles including forestry, grain transport, fire-fighting, and snowplowing.

13 cab, an entirely Canadian design made from late 1941 until the end of the war, had the two flat panes of the windscreen angled slightly downward to minimize the glare from the sun and to avoid causing strong reflections that would be observable from aircraft.

This enabled more rapid production, while retaining similar specifications for chassis, drive, and mounting of vehicle rear bodies.

[11] The wide variety of truck body designs included general service (GS) / troop carrier, fuel / water tanker, vehicle recovery (tow truck), field ambulance, dental clinic, mobile laundry, wireless house (radio HQ), machinery (machine shop / welding station), folding-boat transport, artillery tractor, and anti-tank gun portee.

[16] The initial 60 cwt (3-ton) Dodge types (engineering codes T110L-S, T110L-3, T110L-4, as well as the later T110L-14) were not formally D60s,[18][nb 5] leaving 124,961 (91% of the 3‑ton trucks) with a CMP-type name-code (based on serial numbers).

Air-portable versions had the top half of the cab superstructure and exterior components stowed — to allow the vehicles to fit in the hold of transport aircraft — and could easily be re-fitted on receipt in theatre.