Hotchkiss M201
Encyclopedia
The Hotchkiss M201 was the standard light transport vehicle used by the French army
French Army
The French Army, officially the Armée de Terre , is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces.As of 2010, the army employs 123,100 regulars, 18,350 part-time reservists and 7,700 Legionnaires. All soldiers are professionals, following the suspension of conscription, voted in...

 from shortly after the war until well into the 1980s. It started as a World War II Jeep
Jeep
Jeep is an automobile marque of Chrysler . The first Willys Jeeps were produced in 1941 with the first civilian models in 1945, making it the oldest off-road vehicle and sport utility vehicle brand. It inspired a number of other light utility vehicles, such as the Land Rover which is the second...

 built under license and in many respects was little changed forty years later. In France it is usually simply called “La Jeep”.

Description

The M201 employed a simple conventional structure, designed around a light metal frame with two rigid axles suspended on leaf springs. The 4-cylinder in-line engine (known in some quarters as the Willys Go Devil engine
Willys Go Devil engine
The Willys L134 was a straight-4 automobile engine made famous in the Jeep produced in World War II. The engine displaced with a bore and stroke, a very undersquare design. It was an L-head design, with valves parallel to the cylinders...

) was positioned at the front and the gear box, alongside the torque splitter, was in the middle of the vehicle alongside the driver. There was no roof and there were no doors. The standard version provided seating for four and an open load area at the back. The windscreen could be folded forward over the engine hood/bonnet.

For road use the rear axle was driven, power being switchable also to the front axle for off-road use. The gear box provided four forward speeds and one reverse speed for road use, and for off-road use a lower “crawler” ratio was available. There was no limited slip differential
Limited slip differential
A limited slip differential is a type of differential gear arrangement that allows for some difference in angular velocity of the output shafts, but imposes a mechanical bound on the disparity...

 but the vehicle’s light weight and the available gearing nevertheless provided excellent off-road capability.

The military defined the M201 as a VLTT (Véhicule Léger Tout Terrain). The standard vehicles were mostly used as staff cars or radio cars.

For use in Northern Africa the company developed a ‘’Sahara“ version, featuring a strengthened chassis, firmer springing at the back, a supplementary tool box under the front grille and a second fuel tank beneath the passenger seat. Before long the vehicle was also adapted for use as a launch vehicle for anti-tank guns or rockets, and some were fitted with surveillance radar dishes.

History

Directly after the Second World War, the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 government was presented by the US Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

 with 22,000 Willys Jeeps and Ford GPW
Willys MB
The Willys MB US Army Jeep and the Ford GPW, were manufactured from 1941 to 1945. These small four-wheel drive utility vehicles are considered the iconic World War II Jeep, and inspired many similar light utility vehicles. Over the years, the World War II Jeep later evolved into the "CJ" civilian...

s. The objective was rapidly to re-equip the army. Only about half of the vehicles were in a usable condition, however, and in 1946 the E.R.G.M. (Etablissement de Réserve Générale du Matériel Automobile) began work to make the vehicles usable at a Paris suburb called Maltournée, in what is now the department of Seine-Saint-Denis
Seine-Saint-Denis
- Culture :A number of hip hop artists come from the Seine-Saint-Denis, including one of the first major hip-hop groups in France, NTM, as well as Lord Kossity, or more recent acts such as Tandem or Sefyu.- Miscellaneous topics :...

, to the north-east of Paris. The Jeeps in the poorest condition were broken up in order to be used as spare parts. However, this quickly created a larger inventory of many spare parts than would ever be used, and work began on building quasi-new Jeeps using the surplus spare parts obtained by breaking up the least usable of the used US-military Jeeps. As time progressed, this production process, which continued to operate until 1978, increasingly combined the old parts with new parts acquired for the purpose, each vehicle being a unique blend of Willys, Ford and Hotchkiss components.

In the late 1940s the military intended to replace the Hotchkiss M201 from 1949 with the Delahaye VLR
Delahaye VLR
The Delahaye VLR was a four wheel drive passenger vehicle clearly inspired by the Jeep and first presented, after an unusually long gestation, by Delahaye during the Summer of 1950...

, a vehicle that had much in common with the Jeep, but which was newly designed and French. The Delahaye was relatively complex, technically, but the French military insisted that this was not a problem for them. Nevertheless, by 1955, with just 9,623 of the Delahaye vehicle produced and the Delahaye company itself financially dead, production of the Delahaye VLR
Delahaye VLR
The Delahaye VLR was a four wheel drive passenger vehicle clearly inspired by the Jeep and first presented, after an unusually long gestation, by Delahaye during the Summer of 1950...

 was suddenly abandoned very soon after Delahaye
Delahaye
Delahaye automobile manufacturing company was started by Emile Delahaye in 1894, in Tours, France. His first cars were belt-driven, with single- or twin-cylinder engines. In 1900, Delahaye left the company.-History:...

 ran out of money and its assets fell into the hands of Hotchkiss.

At this stage the E.R.G.M was still supplying reconstructed Jeeps from its stock of surplus parts at Maltournée, but with the Delahaye VLR
Delahaye VLR
The Delahaye VLR was a four wheel drive passenger vehicle clearly inspired by the Jeep and first presented, after an unusually long gestation, by Delahaye during the Summer of 1950...

 no longer available the army decided that a more permanent solution for supply of light all-terrain reconnaissance vehicles would need to be found. Hotchkiss had by now built up a reasonable understanding of the Jeeps, having been the supplier, where needed, of manufactured spare parts to the Maltournée based assembly operation, and having also itself been producing Jeeps, primarily for civilian use in France, under licence from Willys.

In 1955 465 Jeeps were produced, and these were called Hotchkiss Licence MBs. From 1956 the vehicles were simply known as the Hotchkiss M201. By 1966 Hotchkiss had produced 27,628 M201s, mostly at a plant in Stains
Stains
Stains is a commune in the northern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.-Heraldry:-Transport:Stains is served by Pierrefitte – Stains station on Paris RER line D...

, a short distance to the north of Paris.

Possibly on ground of price, and possibly because of the lack of a suitable dealer network, attempts to sell the vehicle into the civilian market never amounted to much. In 1962 Hotchkiss offered an alternative power unit, a Peugeot
Peugeot
Peugeot is a major French car brand, part of PSA Peugeot Citroën, the second largest carmaker based in Europe.The family business that precedes the current Peugeot company was founded in 1810, and manufactured coffee mills and bicycles. On 20 November 1858, Emile Peugeot applied for the lion...

 diesel engine. This was an exceptionally good year for the Hotchkiss Jeep and the military took 4,370 of the vehicles, while the civilian market took just 269. Where they were used outside the army, the Hotchkiss Jeeps were chiefly used in agriculture and forestry.

In 1981, with 8,000 Jeeps in use, the army finally took the decision to replace the M201 with the Mercedes
Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz is a German manufacturer of automobiles, buses, coaches, and trucks. Mercedes-Benz is a division of its parent company, Daimler AG...

 designed
Mercedes-Benz G-Class
The original 460-series Geländewagen went on sale for civilian buyers in 1979, after having debuted in February of that year. It was offered with two wheelbases, a short wheelbase of 2,400 mm and a long one of 2,850 mm. One could choose between three body styles: A two-door short...

 Peugeot P4
Peugeot P4
The P4 is an unarmoured off-road vehicle used by the military of France. It was manufactured by Peugeot but is now manufactured by Panhard. It is to be replaced with the PVP by Panhard. The P4 is a militarised Mercedes Geländewagen marketed by Peugeot for the French military...

. Nearly two decades later, in 2000, the last of the M201s was taken out of service.

External links

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