21 Apr 03. The UK DPA has contacted the four bidders, MAN, Mercedes-Benz, Oshkosh and Stewart & Stevenson, engaged in bidding for the Support Vehicle requirement, informing them that the requirement had slipped to the latter part of 2003, when there will be a Main gate Review with contract award in Spring 2004. The DPA will hold a clarification session with the bidders outlining their strengths and weaknesses from the previous bids. New tenders will be submitted by July with answers in August.
All four bidders will remain in the contest, with no indication of a down-select. The DPA has requested that all four bidders will submit their trucks for the DVD Exhibition in July.
We had received indications at the time of the last delay that the result of the US FMTV rebuy, won by Stewart & Stevenson (See BATTLESPACE ALERT Vol.5 ISSUE 5 April 18th 2003) would break the log-jam for this requirement and speed up the process to a possible down-select. Some had suggested that the wrecker variant requirement would be split away from the main requirement as a separate procurement. Oshkosh showed their new wrecker at AUSA in February. However the Ministry is now keeping all four bidders in the frame and we shall see what the outcome will be.
BATTLESPACE is publishing a special feature on this requirement in our July Military vehicles Issue.