The LAV II Bison and Coyote are armoured cars (or armoured personnel carriers) built by General Dynamics Land Systems Canada for the Canadian Armed Forces. It is based on the Mowag Piranha 8x8. Bison vehicles have also been used (to a lesser extent) by the Australian Army and the US National Guard. Bison The Bison is an armoured personnel carrier that has been in active service since 1990, built by Diesel Division General Motors Canada. They were purchased and intended for operation by the Canadian Forces Primary Reserve, but were rapidly appropriated for use by the Regular Force of the Canadian Army. Origins Land Force Command, after the release of the 1987 Defence White Paper by the then recently appointed Minister of National Defence (Canada) Perrin Beatty, which announced major spending increases to support the Canadian Forces Reserves, began looking for a new armoured personnel carrier to equip the Canadian Forces Reserves. Leading this project was Colonel Roméo Dallaire (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. The original plan for these 200 M113A3s was to have the vehicles manufactured in the United States with some parts produced locally in Canada to fulfil Canadian content requirements for Canadian Forces procurement. 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. During this time a small team of salesmen and engineers heard about the army program and thought they had a chance to scoop up the contract and supply a vehicle based on the LAV II chassis with the idea that the vehicle would be better suited to the intended reservist role over the M113A3 due to being wheeled compared to the tracked M113 APC, as the vehicles would likely do a large amount of their movement by road within Canada as well as the cheaper operation costs of using a wheeled vehicle for the Reserves. Design, prototype and procurement To convince Land Force Command to purchase the vehicle, two engineers