No, no, he was in Canada during that filming. A kind-hearted soul was warning him that Revenue Canada had cancelled his Social Insurance Number. (Similar to a US Social Security Number.)
The Iltis was both fun and terrifying to drive at the same time. It could roll at almost all speeds. In 1988, I was driving one over the Skyway bridge in Hamilton. When a truck passed me, you could feel the Iltis lift.... They were retired during our time in Afghanistan. Hitting an IED with it was instant death. Mind you, I liked it enough that I went looking for one when they were retired to use as a fun day off road vehicle.
The iltis in 2003 was finally retired from service after the suicide bomber at kaf jumped on an iltis jeep driven by Cpl. James Murphy killing him and the 3 others serious wounds from the blast at the gate to kaf
My friend in the CF almost died when the G-Wagon he was riding in the turret of decided to flip while going down a muddy road in CFB Gagetown. He felt it start to wiggle so he quickly sat inside and as he did the vehicle flipped around him. When it settled he was inside of it sitting on the roof, a passenger wasn't so lucky and suffered a broken leg. It seems the CF loves vehicles that flip with no effort.
The Canadian military buys good gear but then doesn't replace it until it's well past it's best by date (Humvee users can doubtless identify). With the Iltis, so long as you didn't run into any rocks or logs bigger than it's ground clearance, it was amazing cross country. It could weave through trees that could stop a tank and over ground a heavier truck would sink to the axles in. On my qualification course we were going down a ravine in the Rockies where the wheels were riding along the sides of a sharp vee and were about three feet above the bottom of vee. We got to a flat spot and had to make a sharp turn around a tree which the front wheels couldn't make so we got out and the four of us skidded the rear end over to make the turn. So it wasn't a combat vehicle like an armored car but, like the Willys Jeep from WW 2, it could get places the big guys couldn't.
@@Danspy501st As you say... mostly;). The Willys also saw their share of light reconnaissance work but as an alternative to foot patrols rather than a replacement for proper armored reconnaissance. I have seen footage of them towing a 37 mm AT gun though that may have just been trials state side. I don't know if they were ever operationally deployed in that role. Possibly in the South Pacific or some airborne/glider operations but they really had better AT alternatives by the time America got into the war.
@@Danspy501st The Iltis was designed as a 1/4" ton reconnaissance vehicle and people mover originally. In this role she was fine, but by the end of her life she was being put in situations an unarmored light vehicle should not of been in. On top of this they were run hard and worn by the time they ended service. I think the comparison to the Willys, or maybe more specifically the Kublewagon, is apt. A vehicle that fit the previous war.
I see you never drove one through Hibernia Corner in Gagetown while towing a trailer in the spring. Ever wonder what is needed to blow a "gear" out of a M113? .......
I knew a guy in the Canadian army that said the Iltises that he used were all worn out, which is why he hated them. When the replacement vehicles showed up (Mercedes G-Wagon, I think?) he was very happy. He told me "It's great! The heater can melt plastic!"
I was in the RCA and had the same experience. They were beat to death by the time I used them, late 90s-early 2000s. The G-wagens that replaced them were more practical, not really as fun to off-road though.
There were brackets in between the front seats to hold rifles. It was ok putting the C1 rifles into the brackets, but a pain to take them out. Yes, the heater wasn't efficient.
All the ones I saw sold off to civilians, including mine, need a ton of work. Once that was done they were great toys. Parts are drying up for them, or at least getting very expensive unfortunately.
Try the back seat. I'm 5'10" and in Bosnia in 1994 with body armour and ammo I would just basically fall out the door and jump up pretending I didn't. Even Elvis couldn't look cool getting out of an Iltis. They were slow, excellent off road (full lockers, low gearing, 4x4) and reliable (lasted over 20 years with a new 18 year old driver every six months). They were good for what they were meant for: Taking the OC to the O Group. It was not a combat vehicle (but don't tell the Ont R that).
@@devilin100 That can't have been a fun time. I mean, I'm not that big and of relatively average height (183cm), but even so I think I'd have a hard time getting out of the back of that if the roof was on.
We need to get you to Jay Leno’s garage, where you can compare getting in and out of exotic sports cars (oh, my Lamborghini is on fire ) to getting in and out of armored vehicles
timengineman2nd714 wrote: "Kinda looks like if a Kubelwagen and a Jeep had a baby!" -- Nah, if Kubelwagen and a Jeep had a baby, then it would look like Soviet LuAZ 969, then when LuAZ "grew up" into Iltis, it looked more like a it real parent -> G-Wagon, then a Jeep! How about that for automotive "genetics"?
License built by Bombardier, originally a Volkswagen design. Doors were often removed and strapped to the hood but if you really wanted to just open the window, there's a snap to hold it open but visibility out the side was ridiculous when you did that. As mentioned by @gryph01, it was both fun and terrifying at the same time.
@@Skorpychan The Küblelwagen is a derivitive of the KDF wagen, the later Beatle. It had the same rear mounted engine and gearbox. This is a derivitive of the K70 a failed pre Golf 1 (Rabbit) car. This has a transverse front mounted engine and gearbox
"Iltis" is German for polecat. These vehicles were not really such stinkers. The Iltis came into service in the early 1980s to replace the M151, which lasted less than 10 years in Canadian service. I spent a lot of time in the Iltis, but I was an artillery officer and my Iltis came with a driver/signaller. I drove it on long road moves under the supervision of my driver. I fit in it easily (I'm 1.80m) and the high door sill was never a problem. It was fine if used as intended. The Canadian Forces, however, just cannot use kit to a design's limitations, hence the introduction of "ballistic blankets" to protect oneself from mine and IED fragments -- about as wrong-headed an approach as the CF have had since the Ross rifle and the MacAdam shovel.
There is an iltis at the canadian museum of war that survived a shootout in the Balkans. It's cribbled with bullets and amazingly the soldiers survived.
I owned an Iltus (Danish) in West Africa as a civilian. It was great! Could go all over the place, was 4x4 with locking axles front and back. Mine had a snorkel and hooked exhaust for very deep fords. The roof and doors came off, the windshield locked to the hood horizontally. It had a VW 1.8l engine that anyone could fix and I could get parts no problem. Flat out in 4th it got up to 115KPH. The chieftain should have moved the seat back. I'm 6.2 and it had further play in it.
When I trained on the Iltus with the CF in the early 90s, I could only hit a top of 80 km/h in 4th. Even downhill with a backwind only got 90 km/h. More fun was Canadian winter driving. -30C in a blowing blizzard, the latch holding the tarp roof snapped in the cold. A loose roof then blowing cold and snow right into the driver. Not to mention that only one spare tire per vehicle, but the left and right tires had different threadings. So, coin flip to see if you had the correct spare!
Canadian here (never been in the military) but I bought one off an former soldier and he hated them in service, but in civilian life liked it to run around town in and run around in the fields/service roads. The vast majority of people I know in the Iltis community who like them are not in the service and just love the history of the little beast, fixing them up, and running them around town. I ran mine offroad a lot with local 4x4 clubs and while it had almost zero articulation it did have a very solid 4x4 system (an early Quarto system) and locking diffs. It is a very small and skinny jeep so I could weave around things that stopped most people, or bad spots in a track. Heavy use of the skinny peddle to make use of all 75 HP was required. It was also incredibly low geared with a extra low ground gear for crawling. Once you hit 4th gear at 60km you were in that gear till 120km so the engine just screamed on the highway, but I had zero issues doing that the entire time I owned it. That 1.7L straight 4 VW engine loved to rev. The worst part of the system was that it was carbureted and hated inclines, and had all the issues starting that early 50's/60's cars did with a long warmup. Manual choke as well, so you had to baby it. Oh and I am as tall as the Chieftain and found that VW Jetta seats were drop-in replacements to the military seats. A bit of welding extension to them and I was able to sit comfortably, but I did always end up with leg cramps on long drives and the ride was tractor levels of rough. I normally drove it with the doors removed, but the entire soft top could be removed leaving just the front window and roll bar... that was a lot of fun offroad. It has two back seats but as a former service member told me they only people that used them were prisoners the MP's picked up and most thought it was probably a war crime due to the torture in fitting a human into that space. I'll probably regret selling mine, owned it 10 years, but parts were get very expensive and harder to find and I had my fun with her over the years. I was spending more time fixing then driving so sold her this year. It was great to have a real military vehicle and everyone loved seeing it and wanted to talk about her.
Around '92 in the early days of UNPROFOR, a Belgian Iltis hit an anti tank mine, killing both occupants. North of Belišće on the other side of the Drava.It was in use in Ruanda in '94 and in Somalia. I did my tour couple of years later patroling the area with recce section 2x Iltises. Removable roof and doors give a lot of visibility. Remarkably good in mud and sand probably due to low weight and power, just like original Jeep.
It happened during times when most armies were using soft-skinned non-MRAP vehicles. Low survivability put legends like LR Defender, Merc/Puch G and derivatives, Pinzgauer out of service.
Fun fact - Audi's first Quattro experiments used Iltis parts. Somehow I don't think you'd be able to reverse the process and jam an Audi turbo five into an Iltis.
To be honest. As a Belgian army guy. We liked the iltis more than its replacement the IVECO LMV. That one is just too big, too loud, not as off-roady, too heavy, too much crap. And on a side note. We had an armoured version of an Iltis. 😊😅😂
The thing with the Iltis is that it was a liaison vehicle used among other things as a armoured recce vehicle, command vehicle, stretcher carrier, etc. and more in all types of unite, even inside mecanised units. Not a good mix. It was overloaded, underpowered (for that). However, as a liaison vehicle, in light role, it was fun to drive, underpowered but fun and nimble. I liked the Iltis.
I drove these when they were new. It was nice to have a vehicle where the canvas fit and kept out most of the rain and wind, unlike our tired M38's. The Iltis was a copy of a West German design that was going out of service there, when we decided to build them. I understand that the Belgium's bought them as well from Bombardier. New they were quite nippy and good offroad, with a locking rear diff. The big issue was they were just really to small for the majority of the tasks that we wanted to do and we should have bought the two door soft top G-Wagons the Germans were getting. It really is a 4x4 Volkswagen Rabbit.
I served with a Canadian artillery reserve unit and was there when the first Iltis was issued to the unit. The Iltis was better than nothing but it was too small for many of its assigned tasks. It was little better than a motorcycle with a sidecar. We occasionally trained with American National Guard units at CFB Gagetown and our drivers drooled over the Humvee.
Everyone complains about the Iltis, but without it the Audi Quattro in all its Rallye greatness, probably wouldn’t exist. VAG engineers started messing around with an Iltis and developed the Quattro AWD system.
A couple of basically stock VW 183 won an early incarnation of the Paris Dakar. Not because they where the fastest but because they where extremly rugged and easy to keep running.
I liked them. Drove the Rover (Radio) versions, and the Line Detachment version for several years - had the benefit of getting them at the start of their service life, so that no doubt makes a difference in worthiness or not. I'd driven the M38s and M151s prior, and got out before these were replaced with G-Landers. Fun trivia - could use a pencil to engage the switch that normally needed an angle key (for lack of better word), to allow the engine to be started. So we had locks and chains to keep them from being 'borrowed'.
In germany the think is called the "(NATO)Knochen" (NATO Bone) and the official term for the whole thing is "Batterie-Hauptschalter" (Battery Main Switch)
I own a former Belgian "Iltis". I use it as a classic car and sometimes drive it off-road. It's particularly good off-road. You just have to drive the vehicle a bit carefully so that it doesn't tip over. But as a private owner, you drive your vehicle differently than as a soldier who doesn't own the vehicle. The Iltis was so popular in Belgium that it was only very recently taken out of service for good. I am 6' 1" tall and can drive the vehicle very comfortably in military boots.
The Chieftain shows his relative youth when he criticizes the fabric doors. Had you been in the active U.S. Army pre-mid 1980s you would have experienced the same kinds of doors on the M151-A2 1/4-ton truck utility, a.k.a. the Jeep. I got to drive over a hundred miles on the East German autobahn to a training area in West Germany with a jeep that (1) was cold, and (2) shook like a 7.0 earthquake for two hours at 45 mph. Understood, it's not a HMMWV. That's why the jeep needed to go away after decades of dedicated service.
My captain tried to fit his M60A3 tank into his M151A4 jeep. Didn't work out too well. But we had fun putting together a "Jeep In a box" a couple weeks later 😎
From the RCEME side.. i liked it... it was easy to fix. and it went anywhere. good jeep.. smelled bad... and worked.. good fuel econemy.. we should have got the German V6... and no we did not need the 4 w steering... it was good ... dependable. i liked it.. from a REME guy
The first Iltis jeeps were delivered to the Belgian Army around 1986, replacing the by then antique Minerva-Landrover Its users complained about windscreens cracking when using the jeep in rough terrain.
As a signals NCO it was my primary vehicle, replacing a M-151. Drove the same one for a very long time. Aside from it being crowded, i liked it a lot. Never got stuck. They were dead reliable when new, unlike the CUCV and MLVW.
I got mine up to 120km, but I had a strong wind pushing me and flat prairie roads to run it up on. The engine was screaming at that point but seemed to love the high revs. Stable at that speed too, funny enough.
my uncle (who was Canadian Army, and was active in the Balkans in the 1990s) actually LOVED the iltis and had many good stories with it, mind you, my uncle is about the same height as chieftain so...take that with what you will
Back in the '80s we absolutely loved them. They look like an ashtray but the damn thing could just about climb a tree. Not so fun on the highway when it's -40 however
@@festusdirk True, though for a jeep-type vehicle it sure was. With the center of gravity so high, it had a tendency to roll if hit by a wind gust from the side at high speed. But yes, the 80s Bundeswehr vehicles were built for speed... we once took a 5t milgl that had a broken tachograph system, and easily overtook cars on a Bundesstraße where the limit was 100... sadly we couldn't tell how fast we were actually, as we had to open the speedometer to prevent the tachograph from recording the top speed (it recorded the speed fine... but the clockwork was broken so it only recorded a vertical line)
The biggest achievment of the ILTIS was to be the supportvehicle for audis winter testing in the 70's. (the original VW Iltis) The engineers (among them a certain F. Piech) noticed how the Iltis was able to "do circles" around them in the snow. And so it inspired the idea of the quattro.
I drove the Iltis when I was in, and I loved the vehicle. I love the thing so much, I bought my own 😁 In my opinion, it was the perfect recce vehicle, save for perhaps the old Willy's Jeeps. FGH 00-07
I saw these in use when I was part of AMF/L in Europe in the early eighties, but they were German, made by VW. I never knew they were also built by Bombardier. One learns something new every day. 😃
Former reservist here. If I recall correctly, most personnel had a love-hate relationship with the Iltis. While being tremendous fun and, according to legend, nigh-unstoppable by all but the most unnavigable terrain while also having an unforgivably high center of gravity, it was entirely unsuited for anything other than being a solely-for-domestic deployment. Absolutely useless in any hostile area as it's completely unarmoured. It's basically a VW dune buggy conversion.
Canada replaced them with the Gwagon which is funny since the Iltis beat the old 80's Gwagons during the original testing/procurement. From everything I've heard it was a welcome replacement.
@@T.efpunkt Yes and no. The first G-class/wagon had an awfully small engine plus more massive body. Later Wolfs, while basically the same vehicle, got a lot of improvements.
That was the first thing I learned to drive in the Army in 1999. It had its significant shortcomings in modern combat but for its intended purpose it was a great little jeep for Recce and support.
I think the tallest person I ever met was a WO2 in the Royal Corps of Transport a seven footer he had his own personal SWB Land Rover where I guess the REME had taken out the drivers seat and he did indeed sit in what to the rest of us would have been the back of the Rover (they must have jury rigged the original front seat).
IMHO the Land Rover 90/110 and earlier still has the most uncomfortable drivers seat. We had a VW Iltis (Bombardier changed some details) in the 80s for the company commander, his radio, a driver and another multiple-use soldier. In that Job it worked well.
Not entirely true. During the winter testing of normal fwd audis the engineers noticed their support iltis being able to go circles around them, and that's where the quattro idea for audi came from. They didn't use the same awd/4wd construction as the iltis. They engineered a new system.
😂They were garbage vehicles made to be disposable they are difficult to drive under powered no armor no room for anything easy to break and expendable is not an ideal quality for a modern military vehicle,
If I search „How tall is the chieftain“ I get results that you are 290cm tall and weigh approximately 55tons with a pretty big „gun“. Impressive that you fit in that 4x4.
This type of vehicle is one of the best light medical transporters on the battlefield. And the one who "doesn't like it" is just a typical representative of peacetime army.
The clutch on this vehicle required a Herculean effort to push. After driving this for a month in the field, I remember getting in my personal Jeep YJ (1990), and nearly punching a hole through the floor with my left foot when I depressed the clutch. And yeah, we hated that overly complex and hard to maintain piece of crap.
We used to live a couple of blocks away from Kapyong Barracks back in the day. The Iltis were a common sight - always with the top removed regardless of the weather.
For the kids watching, when he says 01:40 "...go the HighTower route, of pulling out the front seat and sitting in the back" ... watch the movie Police Academy, you will be glad you did :)
Originally the VW Model 183, developed for the West German Army, entered production in 1978. Bombardier acquired a manufacturing license in 1983 and produced them for both Canada and Belgium. As a light 4x4 liason vehicle with locking differentials, and this system formed the basis for the Audi Quattro system that debuted in 1980. The Iltis as it became to be known as in service (german for polecat) was designed by Audi, and in fact a specially prepared audi won the 1980 paris-dakar rally. The problem as others pointed out was it got used for all manner of things it was never designed for, including as a patrol vehicle in wartime, such as in Afghanistan, which it was wholly unsuited to given there was no armor protection for the occupants of any sort. Also as with all things Bombardier touched... they managed to make the same thing the cost more than the original manufacturer could build them for. The 1983 order was $68 million for 1900 Iltis's ($35,789 each), and a followup 1985 order for another 600 ran $15 million ($25,000 each).
And then they sold them to civilians at auction going anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand for nice models. Tax payers really over paid for them. Funny enough VW/Audi tried to make civilian version of the Iltis, similar to the Gwagon, with a hardtop and more features but it cost so much nobody would buy it. Car and Drive, I think, did an article on it.
The Bombardier version was built in Belgium by VW w/ Canadian parts. All of them were exclusively for the Belgian Army , 2673 in total , more than Canada as they "only" bought 2500. Parachuting them out of a plane was not ideal as most gearboxes broke when touching ground , an Air Force officer told me in the early '90s. Great to muck about in with 2 ppl but nothing more ... Still in service today for parades , MP/RP & non conflict grocery gettin. Replaced by RRV's.
Good day. As everyone can see I infact did drive Iltis. In my experience they were not all that bad. Yes sucked in the winter and a bit loud on the highway. But overall a fun vehicle to drive. Very poorly suited for combat operations in a place like Afghanistan (due to the nature of the operation/threat). If not overloaded with too much kit (as MPs ours were always in such a state, carrying a trailer loaded with gear, rations, water, fuel and a route signing kit.....kind of does that), they moved along really well. You should try getting in the back seat Nick. It'll be fun, and there is a trick to it. As for the window on the door! When unzipped it folds up (triangularly) and snaps into a button, (which if it's there and working.......BIG IF.) will hold it open.
...that steering wheel's the same one that was in my '71 Beetle when I got it. I don't think it was _original_ to that car, and it was quite badly cracked, but I do know later Beetles used those same plastic wheels. Interesting bit of parts-bin sharing.
It's a product of *VW/Audi* produced _under licence_ by Bombardier I wager. It's easy to see why peple that know American off-road vehicles don't like them but it does have its perks. Such as keeping your feet dry with those high door sills. As long as the underbody hasn't rusted through. The _really_ bad one is the predecessor named *DKW Munga* which is to all intents and purposes a shorter Iltis with a two-stroke engine.
They had a similar vehicle at Hohenfels Germany in the 90s when we were tasked to be "civlilians" on the MOUT sites. I always assumed it was a surplus German vehicle.
The Iltis was in active service well into the late 1990s. The replacement (Mercedes G "Wolf") only was ordered in the early 1990s and came in slowly. My reserve unit still used Iltis in 1994 (my last call up)
I maybe didn't read far enough into the comments but! Its not garbage or great its just WEIRD. Because of the complete under body skid plate, it works as an AWD toboggan, which was fun. I did see one standing on its nose in a meter of churned sand in a tank run, that was the day the dyslexic was discovered in our unit (no really) he should have turned to his other left.
I drove one of these in 1987/88 in the Bundeswehr. For a 1,85m guy it was not comfortable but to manage.The rear seats are only suitable for members of the chinese state circus.😅. Cross country they were not bad, but had a high center of gravity,high fuel consumption and very low internal space . We had always envy to the british with their Land Rover(offered much more room) and the then new Humvees were just from outer space.
Did you ever drive a Land Rover? Our twinned unit 1HQ and signals LR were larger, but the drivers seats were absurdly close to the door plus the rear radio seats uncomfortable in another way. The US humvees were even broader than our 1,5t unimogs.
Yes,long ago I had the opportunity to drive an old Ex-army land rover from the 60ies, I think(no synchronized gearbox).The drivers position is in deed not ideal, but the Landy offers much more space for equipment and all kind of stuff than the tiny Iltis.@@festusdirk
Humtatats - we liked them in REFORGER. Use an Iltis to lure them into a position where they get stuck then use a Unimog U1300 to charge them a crate of beer to pull them out :)
Eons ago I was a troop sergeant major in an artillery battery and getting my 200 pound body, before web gear, map case and weapon in or out of an Iltis was no fun at all. With winter gear on it basically was impossible without losing major style points.
Interesting thing about this is that the 4WD system in the Iltis was jammed by Audi engineers into the body of an Audi 80, resulting in the legendary Audi Quattro rally car.
The Iltis was developed and produced by Volkswagen for the Bundeswehr. Bombardier later bought the machines and made additional 3000 for the Canadians.
'Sit in the back seat'. Apparently some Willys jeeps were converted to look like Kubelwagens during WW2 for clandestine operations. Because of the difference in layout, the real driver had to sit in a back seat with a dummy Wermacht driver in the front seat. 😮
I would LOVE to see if The Chieftain can fit in a WW2 Japanese Type 95 Ha-Go Tank, Drivers Position as well as the Commander/Gunner Position, since it's design was meant for the smaller stature of Japanese Tankers.
The west German army had them too as standard "truck 0.5 t mil gl". I had one of them. Being age 19 and doing my national service I got lucky. Driving an Iltis did beat walking and dragging a G3 and an MG3 along. I got lucky twice as my Iltis was general purpose, i.e. 2-man crew. Quite nice compared to the ones with a bulky radio and a 3-man crew. Not to mention the two-radio version with a 4-man crew. Yes, 4 guys, 2 big radios, 4 rifles, 1 GPMG or RPG launcher, 4 seats of personal stuff. Yes, they had a reputation of rolling easily. If memory serves right there was a general speed limit of 100 kph on the autobahn and 80 kph everwehere else. Off-road qualities, no idea as I have no comparison. If definitely beat its predecessor, the "passenger vehicle 0.4 t tmil 4x2", a.k.a. VW type 181, a.k.a. Kübelwagen. Of course, its successor, now that would have been nice ... Merc G, anybody?
