Automobiles Industriels Latil, commonly known as Latil, was a French manufacturer of commercial and military vehicles created to manage the assets of the defunct Compagnie Française d'Mecánique et d'Automobiles, to market Georges Latil's avant-train Latil, an early front-wheel drive system. The company was established in 1909 by entrepreneur Charles Blum as Charles Blum & Cie. It started to use Automobiles Industriels Latil in the 1910s as a trading name. The company started to produce military vehicles by the 1910s and commercial ones in great numbers by the end of World War I. In 1928, the company adopted its trading name as its legal name. It was dissolved in 1955 after being merged into the Saviem group.
In 1898, Georges Latil and Aloïs Korn established an enterprise in Marseille (Korn et Latil) to market a Latil invention, the avant-train Latil, a kit to convert carriages into front-wheel drive vehicles. In 1901, Latil and Korn moved its operations to Levallois-Perret and created the Compagnie Française d'Mecánique et d'Automobiles to sell it in Paris. Despite an initial success, the company was declared bankrupt.[2] By 1905, Charles Blum became an investor and administrator of the company's assets. In 1909, he took over the assets and created a new company called Charles Blum & Cie. to manage them. He kept Georges Latil and his brother Lazare as part of the technical managing team.[2] In June 1912, the company was reorganised as a société en commandite par actions and renamed Charles Blum & Cie S.C.A., later trading as Automobiles Industriels Latil.[3] That same year, Blum established another company to operate a fleet of vehicles equipped with the avant-train Latil. In 1914, Latil opened a new, larger production plant in Suresnes to replace Levallois-Perret. The Suresnes plant had 20,000 square metres (m2) of covered area in a site of 30,000 m2.[2][3]
After the war, the company also fully entered into the commercial vehicle business, including trucks.[7] In 1924, it unveiled the first of the TL series of four-wheel drive multipurpose tractors.[8]
In November 1928, all the Latil group companies were merged into Charles Blum & Cie S.C.A. which became a société anonyme and was renamed as Automobiles Industriels Latil.[2][1]
During World War II, it collaborated with the ammunitions company MAP and sold tractors under the name MAP-Latil.[4] After the occupation of France, the Latil plants produced vehicles for the Wehrmacht and only escaped Allied bombing because they were in densely populated areas.[10] In October 1944, Blum, being a French Jew, died exiled in New York.[11]
In 1945, the Pons Plan reduced the number of vehicle manufacturers from 28 to seven and Latil was made part of the Peugeot-led grouping.[4]
After World War II, the company found it increasingly difficult to compete with its larger rivals.[7] In 1948, it simplified its forward control range by introducing the H14 and H16 A1s, with a shared cabin, standardised components and using mostly just a couple of engines with Gardner licence.[9]
In 1955, Latil was combined with the heavy vehicles division of Renault and with Somua to form Saviem. The Blum family and other stockholders kept shares in the new company until it became a wholly owned Renault subsidiary in 1959.[12] The Latil truck range was gradually phased out, initially being sold as Latil and then briefly as Saviem-LRS and Saviem.[13]
Following the merging, Latil's TL tractor range was also sold as Latil and then as Saviem. In 1962, the licence for the tractors' production was sold to the Creusot-Loire conglomerate, which marketed them as the Latil Batignolles.[14]
Latil's British subsidiary, Latil Industrial Vehicles Ltd., was established in 1924. Up to 1932, Latil's products were imported from France. From 1932[15] to either 1937[16] or 1939, Latil licensed local assembly (mostly Latil's all-wheel drive tractors) to Shelvoke and Drewry. From late 1933 onwards, British-assembled Latil tractors were marketed as Latil Trauliers.[15]
After World War II, Latil's tractors in the UK were partially assembled by US Concessionaires Ltd.[17] The British assembled tractors usually changed the original engines for local ones, mostly Meadows units.[15][17]
Some vehicles equipped with the avant-train Latil were used for comercial purposes before World War I
Vehicles marked with a (◇) have front-wheel drive, unless otherwise indicated. The rest are rear-wheel drive
Vehicles marked with a (☆) are forward control, the rest are conventional
From the late 1920s and up to the early 1930s, a few chassis could be equipped with inline-two diesel engines supplied by the Compagnie lilloise de moteurs.
From the early 1930s, some chassis primarily powered by H Gardner-type diesel engines could mount optional M or F type petrol engines developed by Latil.
In low volumes, various vehicles used alternative fuels apart from petrol or diesel.
MAN AS250 (German MAN agricultural tractor assembled by Latil from 1943 onwards, as MAN focused exclusively on military vehicles. After the war, it was briefly marketed as Latil AS250)[44]
^Loubet, Jean-Louis (1990).『Les grands constructeurs privés et la reconstruction. Citroën et Peugeot 1944–1951』[The big private manufacturers and the Reconstruction. Citroën and Peugeot 1944–1951]. Histoire, économie & société (in French). 9 (3). Armand Colin: 451. doi:10.3406/hes.1990.1555. ISSN1777-5906.
^Greve, Jean François (2007). "Stratégies d'enterprise et action publique". In Moguen-Toursel, Marine (ed.). Firm strategies and public policy in integrated Europe (1950–1980): confrontation and learning of economic actors. Peter Lang. pp. 197–231. ISBN978-90-5201-045-8.
^Kuipers, J. F. J. (1972). A history of commercial vehicles of the world. Oakwood Press. p. 82. ISBN0-85361-114-9.
^ abColombet, Jean-François (2020). "Saviem 1960–1961". Charge utile (in French). No. Hors-série 100. Paris: Histoire et Collections. pp. 52, 71. ISSN1266-8508.
^ abcStevens-Stratten, S.W (2019). British Lorries 1900–1945. Amberley Publishing. ISBN978-1-4456-9451-1.
^ abcCotton, L. J. (1949). "'Roughing it on' with a four-wheel drive tractor". The Commercial Motor. Vol. 89, no. 2305. London: Temple Press. ISSN0010-3063.
^Latil 5,800 kg (in French), Suresnes: Latil, 1934
^Latil chassis rapide 8 cylindres specialment realisé pour autobus autocar type V3 A B3 [Fast chassis especially made for bus/coach, V3 A B3 type] (in French), Suresnes: Latil, 1934
^Camionnette M1B [M1B light truck] (in French), Suresnes: Latil, 1934
^Latil 9,500 kgs (in French), Suresnes: Latil, 1934
^Le camion rapide type SPB3 [The fast truck SPB3] (in French), Suresnes: Latil, 1934
^Le véhicule special pour livraisons journalières rapides chassis type 'GPB' [The special vehicle for fast daily deliveries, chassis GPB] (in French), Suresnes: Latil, 1934
^La camionnette Latil type 'GPB2' [The light truck Latil GPB2] (in French), Suresnes: Latil, 1934
^Le chassis 'travaux publics' 4.5 tonnes Latil type 'GPB3' court [The public works chassis 4.5 tonnes Latil GPB3 short] (in French), Suresnes: Latil, 1934
^Chassis 12 tonnes avec moteur 8 cylindres type V3 Y10 Latil [Latil's 12 tonnes chassis with a 8-cylinder engine, V3 Y 10] (in French), Suresnes: Latil, 1934
^Latil types FB6 et H1B6 semi-remorque [Latils FB6 and H1B6 semi-trailer] (in French), Suresnes: Latil, 1935
^Liste des châssis Latil [Latil chassis list] (in French), Suresnes: Latil, 1953
^ abcdeVauvillier, François (June–July 2007).『Les tracteurs d'artillerie à quatre roues motrices. II - Latil, le pérenne』[Four-wheel drive artillery tractors. II - Latil, the perennial]. Guerre, Blindés et Matériel (in French). No. 77. Paris: Histoire et Collections. pp. 70–72. ISSN2492-1297.
^ abTouzin, Pierre (1979). Les Véhicules Blindés Français, 1900–1944 [The French Armoured Vehicles, 1900–1944] (in French). Éditions EPA. p. 27, 64. ISBN2-85120-094-1.
^Contet, A. (1919). "Le charrue Tourand-Latil" [The self-propelled plow Tourand-Latil]. Camions et tracteurs: supplément mensuel de la Vie automobile (in French). Vol. 3, no. 13. Paris: Dunod. p. 26. ISSN1149-2198.
^"MAN AS250". fahrzeugseiten.de (in German). Retrieved 17 August 2023.
^ abVanderveen, Bart (1989). Wheels & Trucks Historic Military Vehicles Directory. Battle of Britain Prints International. pp. 85–86. ISBN0-900913-57-6.
^Kochnev, Evgeniy Dmitrievich (2006). Энциклопедия военных автомобилей 1769–2006 [Encyclopædia of Military Vehicles 1769–2006] (in Russian). Za Rulem Publishing. p. 263. ISBN5-9698-0040-6.
