

After each company submitted four designs the Army selected two of them and asked that they be further developed. In doing so the Army favoured the designs which fully met its requirements, even though they would be the most expensive to produce. The development work involved the companies providing outline designs for other variants, as well as information on the expected costs and how the vehicles could be built in Australia. At this time a tender for formal proposals to design and build the new vehicles was to be issued as the next stage of the project. The studies were completed in early 1983. In December that year the Minister for Defence, Gordon Scholes, announced that the studies confirmed that it would be feasible to build the vehicles in Australia. It was expected that, subject to further approvals by the government, tenders for the project definition phase of the process would be advertised in August 1984. This phase of the project was expected to cost $25 million. By mid-1984 the date for the project definition phase had been pushed back, and it was now scheduled to take place between 1986 and 1988. It was intended to select two firms to undertake this work, leading to a single lead contractor being selected. This firm was to then conduct further development work between 1989 and 1995. Production of the vehicles was to begin during the 1996–1997 financial year. Project Waler was expected to be expensive, and the estimated costs increased over time. In 1981 it was expected that acquiring 700 vehicles would cost $500 million. By 1984 the cost of designing and then building 650 vehicles was estimated to be $638 million. The Sydney Morning Herald reported in 1985 that manufacturing the Project Waler vehicles in Australia was now expected to cost $800 million. The Age stated in the same year that the project as a whole could cost up to $1 billion. The vehicles would be more expensive than comparable designs produced overseas as Australian industry would not be able to achieve economies of scale due to the relatively small number to be procured. Other work related to Project Waler was
