ALL MILITARY PANHARDS 1914–1940

Examined from a military perspective, the firm Panhard & Levassor is best known for its armoured cars. These, from the Panhard-Genty of the Morocco campaign in 1908 to the 1940 eight-wheeled prototype that would later give rise to the EBR, are of course present in this new work. But it is above all a completely overlooked aspect of the manufacturer from the Avenue d'Ivry's output that is highlighted: the Panhard vans and trucks that served under the colours from the dawn of the twentieth century to the armistice of June 1940.

During the First World War, Panhard supplied the French armies with thousands of liaison cars and canvas-topped vans, as well as specialised vehicles: ambulances, squadron estate cars and, above all, remarkable four-wheel-drive artillery tractors. During the interwar period in metropolitan France came the turn of the gas-generator trucks, in which the manufacturer had made a speciality, while in Morocco in the 1930s, large Panhard carriers adapted for hot climates criss-crossed the tracks in the wake of the brand's armoured cars. Finally, during the rearmament period and the 1939–1940 campaign, Panhard, though focused on the production of its famous armoured reconnaissance car (AMD 35), nonetheless produced several thousand 3.5-tonne and 5-tonne trucks.

A historical record paying tribute to the French automotive industry in the service of national defence. This work is the fourth in a collection destined to cover all the vehicles used by the French army. Each volume, highly visual, presents all models systematically, following a chronological classification, with the principal ones rendered in their period colours.

The author

François Vauvillier, born in 1951, founder in 1984 of the company Histoire & Collections and today editor-in-chief of the quarterly GBM, has established himself over the decades as the foremost specialist in French military vehicles of the first half of the twentieth century. A tireless worker, he divides his time between his Parisian home and Brittany. The author of countless articles, he published as early as 1992 his foundational work L'automobile sous l'uniforme 1939-1940. More recently, he signed his best-seller Tous les Blindés de l'armée française 1914-1940 (H&C 2014, reprinted in 2020 and 2022); Le grand album des Citroën-Kégresse (H&C 2022) and the series Tous les..., launched in 2018.