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. During the First World War Canadian land forces had participated as a corps in the British Army. 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 Canadianized prototype of a 15-hundredweight light infantry truck that had then been recently adopted by the British War Office.[1] By 1938, Canadian military authorities had shifted their interest to heavier 4x4 and 6x4 designs. In that year, Ford and GM 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 British specifications. These trucks were originally designated "Department of National Defence (DND) Pattern"; however, when production volumes increased and it became clear that the Canadian-built vehicles were to serve widely in the forces of other countries, the class of trucks was redesignated "Canadian Military Pattern (CMP)". At the outbreak of World War II, Canada's relatively large and modern automobile industry was shifted over to the production of military vehicles. While the Dunkirk evacuation in the spring of 1940 succeeded in rescuing close to 340,000 Allied soldiers who had been encircled by the invading German army, the British Expeditionary Force had been required to abandon most of its military vehicles in France. It then became an urgent need to replace those losses and to provide new vehicles to equip the rapidly expanding armed forces of the Commonwealth.

Ford CMP chassis with opened windscreen pane on driver side
Canadian military truck production included both modified civilian designs as well as purely military designs based on the CMP specification, in roughly equal numbers. Truck production was focussed on a broad range of medium-capacity vehicles; Jeeps and trucks larger than 3 tons in capacity required by the Canadian Army were purchased from U.S. suppliers. Most CMP trucks were manufactured by the Chevrolet division of General Motors of Canada Ltd and by the Ford Motor Company of Canada. The Canadian subsidiaries of the two largest American vehicle manufacturers were able to rapidly ramp up their production because of an unusual degree of inter-company collaboration, the use of interchangeable parts, and because of the large amount of idle production capacity that was a lingering result of the Great Depression. A smaller number of CMP trucks were assembled from Canadian-made chassis and parts in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa (2,600), India (9,500) and Egypt. Following British convention, CMP trucks had right-hand drive even though most of them were built in Canada, which primarily used left-hand drive vehicles. The CMP specification proved versatile, and it formed the basis of a wide variety of different truck types and armoured vehicles. In Australian service (almost always with the No. 13 cab) these vehicles were known as the "Chev Blitz" or the "Ford Blitz".

Just over 400,000 CMP trucks were manufactured in Canada, accounting for roughly half of the 815,729 military vehicles made in Canada during World War II. The most prevalent type was the 4x4 3-ton truck (including models C60S, C60L, F60S and F60L), with just over 209,000 vehicles made. In addition, roughly 9,500 4x4 CMP chassis were made, mainly to be used to build armoured cars and other vehicles in Allied countries. CMP truck production in Canada exceeded the total military truck production of Nazi Germany. The British History of the Second World War (the official history of the war) argues that the production of soft-skinned trucks, including the CMP truck class, was Canada's most important contribution to the eventual Allied victory.

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