Simca Marmon: the French army’s 1.5-tonne truck

The Simca Unic Marmon Bocquet, known as the SUMB or Unic Marmon, was a small tactical military truck carrying 1.5 tonnes, built for the French Army from October 1964 to 1979. It had four-wheel drive by Marmon-Herrington and a semi-forward cab with a folding canvas roof.

Simca Marmon at a glance

This article is based on one source, the French Wikipedia article on the Simca Marmon.

History of the Simca Marmon

The need

Almost fifteen years after the Second World War the French Army still used the Dodge 6×6 trucks given to it at the liberation. The only French vehicle in the class was the small Renault R 2087 4×4, limited to a 750 kg payload, so a vehicle carrying 1.5 tonnes had become necessary and a competition was launched. Attempts to Frenchify the Dodge FF6 chassis or to use the Unimog S chassis with a Mercedes or Renault engine came to nothing, and Marmon-Herrington finished the design of a new vehicle, the MH 600 BS, in 1958. The Army tested it for a long time before adopting it in 1962, with a requirement of 12,000 vehicles.

Who built it

The Bocquet works at Villiers-le-Bel could not build such a number even over a long period, so production was given to UNIC, a subsidiary of Simca Industries in the same group, which built the trucks at Suresnes. The cab was semi-forward with a folding canvas roof, studied by the coachbuilder Genève. Compared with the Unimog S the SUMB had one clear advantage: its engine, although it drank twice as much fuel as an equivalent, was made in France, at a time when public services were practically barred from buying foreign equipment.

The vehicle

The SUMB used the Simca-Ford F7 CWM petrol V8, a Ford design of 1934 also fitted to the Simca Cargo but here with a compressor, and it was very thirsty for both petrol and oil. It had a Simca 8 MHT gearbox whose first gear was still not synchronised, a locking rear differential and no power steering. The engine, chosen by the Army because it was French, turned out to be the vehicle’s weak point. Replacing it with a 130 hp UNIC diesel was considered and quickly dropped as too expensive; the diesel conversion only came in 1994 with the Renault VI 720 turbo engine and ZF gearbox of the TRM 2000, cutting consumption from 35 to 23 litres per 100 km.

Service

The French Army ordered 6,976 Unic Marmons up to 1969. The truck could carry twelve people plus the driver and commander, or 1,500 kg of equipment. From 1970 there was an escort version for the twin 30 mm AMX-13, and an air force version, the MH 600 BSA, had a Pont-à-Mousson four-speed gearbox with synchromesh, also fitted to some MH 600 BS trucks. In 1971 and 1972 fewer than 200 were built with a Poclain hydraulic digger for the engineers. The SUMB was replaced in the French Army by the Saviem TP3 and the Renault TRM 2000.

Design and features

• Four-wheel drive: a Marmon-Herrington system in a compact 1.5-tonne truck.
• Canvas roof: a semi-forward cab with a folding canvas top designed by Genève.
• Simple equipment: no power steering and an unsynchronised first gear.
• Long service: petrol V8s remained in use for decades and were dieselised only from 1994.

Simca Marmon versions

• MH 600 BS (1964–1979): the standard Army truck.
• MH 600 BSA: lighter air force version with a Pont-à-Mousson four-speed gearbox.
• AMX-13 escort (from 1970): a version supporting the twin 30 mm AMX-13.
• Engineer version (1971–72): fewer than 200 with a Poclain digger.
• Diesel SUMB (from 1994): Renault 3.6-litre engine and ZF five-speed gearbox.

The SUMB was built by UNIC, part of Simca Industries; the road cars of the marque are in the Simca collection, among them the Simca Vedette with its own V8. A smaller Simca V8-engined car of the same era was the Simca Ariane.

Sources

• Simca Marmon, French Wikipedia: origins, design, engine, production, service, diesel conversion