The web has changed the hobby of vehicle restoration, for the good, when I started over 30 years ago it was not easy to find information. There were few books about CMPs. The authors of the few books that covered and gave any true depth of information about CMPs deserve special mention Bart Vanderveen and Bill Gregg.

I bought my first books by Bart Vanderveen in 1972 "The Observer's Fighting Vehicle Directory World War II and the companion book The Observer's Fighting Vehicle Directory From 1945. The first of these books on WWII and its coverage of Canadian Military Pattern vehicles is large part responsible for my interest in CMPs (see BEAST Restoration)

When you think back when Bill Gregg and Bart Vanderveen started writing about CMPs the only way to exchange information was by publishing books or magazines in limited runs. Collection of information was done in large part by mail and by talking face to face with people. Peter Ford, John Merchant and a few others collected information about surviving CMPs slowly, one vehicle, or one collector at a time.

When I got started (1978) it was nearly a year before I learned that there were organized clubs concerning restoring military vehicles. It was nearly eight years after I got my HUP that I saw another CMP and met someone face to face who owned one of these strange creatures (1984). By then I had corresponded, or sent of letters, by regular mail to nearly every CMP owner listed in the MVCC (Military Vehicle Collectors Club) directory. I learned may things:
1. That letters with photographs of my CMP got far more responses than the same letter with no photos.
2. That people in the US would pick up the phone and call instead of writing a letter.
3. That phone calls are a very ephemeral or fleeting way of collecting information, unless you can write very fast and take detail notes
4. That people in Australia, Britain, Belgium, Canada, France and Holland (alphabetical order) in other words out side the US, wrote great letters included great photos and detail little drawings about how things fitted on CMPs.
5. I can remember being amazed to receive back responses to letters sent to total strangers in Australia in under two weeks time, it was clear that they had sat down and responded as soon as they had gotten my letter. It was also clear that people put real thought in responding to technical questions in there letters.

I've save many of these letters and photos that people sent me back then and wonder if I should try to put them in some sort of order and include them and the pictures that accompanied them on my web site.

But back to how the Internet has not only speeded up the flow and exchange of information, think of how MLU started most of the posts were just text, now with digital cameras the number of photos has jumped dramatically. Think of the number of times now some body will ask a question about how something fits or what something is and a response including a purpose taken picture(s) from half way around the world is posted online. Now we are adding video to our bag of tricks. The Forum format though really does help with understanding, it adds a reviewable list of posts something that many conversations could really use.

Web Sites as of general CMP interest (these are sites that I visit regularly and are not listed in any real order of importance because they all find unique information) all of these links worked as of September 3, 2006.

http://www.mapleleafup.org/forums/ MLU is the forum for the discussion of CMPs and related topics (this is the page that my web browser opens to)

http://www.canadianregister.co.uk/index.html Canadian Register is rich in vehicle information and photos of MV events in United Kingdom and Europe

http://bcoy1cpb.pacdat.net/cmp_canadian_military_pattern.htm Steven Collin's site includes many interesting bits of CMP and general Canadian History

http://www.bmts.com/~caldwell/ also check their web links page http://www.bmts.com/~caldwell/links.htm for sites I've missed there are a lot. They have some interesting reproduction parts.

http://lwdparts.dominodeveloper.net/members/lwdparts/home.nsf/index.htm also check their web links page http://lwdparts.dominodeveloper.net/members/lwdparts/home.nsf/vwwlinks Dirk also is a source of rare NOS parts for CMPs

http://www.dana-nield.com/d32/blair/Manuals/tabid/217/Default.aspx Alex has a good collection of hard to find manuals. I have several of his reprints and consider them important parts of my reference library.

 

http://www.geocities.com/cmpvehicles/index.html H.L Spoelstra's Made in Canada - Canadian Military Pattern vehicles. The emblem is a reproduction of the decal that was placed on many pieces of military equipment provided under Canada own Lend Lease program to allies during the Second World War.

http://www.oldcmp.net/findit.html Keith Webb's CMP site from down under from Keith site it would seem that there maybe more surviving Canadian Military Pattern vehicles in Australia then any other country in the world. The story of "Canadian Military Pattern" assembly construction and modification in Australia is an interesting one. Keith is constantly adding to his visual history so his site is worth another visit. (or regular visits)

http://users.bigpond.net.au/blitz_trucks/cmp.html Rog Diery CMP site has been arround for years with much interesting information. A site that is in my list of sites to revisit regularly to see what has been added.

My list of CMP related sites numbers something over a hundred and is constantly changing. Use your favorite search engine and search for some of the following: "Canadian Military Pattern" "CMP" "Canadian Military - vehicles, trucks"