Latil
Encyclopedia
Latil was a 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...

 automaker specializing in heavy duty vehicles, such as truck
Truck
A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, with the smallest being mechanically similar to an automobile...

s, tractor
Tractor
A tractor is a vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery used in agriculture or construction...

s and bus
Bus
A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...

es, from 1898 to 1955.

History of the Compagnie Latil

In 1897, Auguste Joseph Frederic Georges Latil patented a system of "broken transmission", allowing the steerable wheels to be also the driving wheels (front-wheel drive
Front-wheel drive
Front-wheel drive is a form of engine/transmission layout used in motor vehicles, where the engine drives the front wheels only. Most modern front-wheel drive vehicles feature a transverse engine, rather than the conventional longitudinal engine arrangement generally found in rear-wheel drive and...

).

He exploited his idea through different companies :
  • In 1898 was founded "La société Korn et Latil" by the engineer Georges Latil and the mecanician Alois Korn in Marseille
    Marseille
    Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...

    . They invented a system that could easily replace the steering axle part of horse towed wagons by a fully motorised part.
  • In 1903 the firm moved to Levallois-Perret
    Levallois-Perret
    Levallois-Perret is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris.-Name:The name Levallois-Perret comes from two housing developments, Champerret and Village Levallois , and which resulted in the incorporation of the...

    , changed the name to "Avant-train Latil" and had great success transforming all kinds of horse powered wagons.
  • 1908, Charles Blum joined the company. The company becomes "Compagnie Française de Mécanique et d'Automobile - Avant-Train Latil" and begins to build trucks of 3 tons loading capacity.

Latil TAR

In 1911, Latil designed and built the first four-wheel drive
Four-wheel drive
Four-wheel drive, 4WD, or 4×4 is a four-wheeled vehicle with a drivetrain that allows all four wheels to receive torque from the engine simultaneously...

 vehicle. This type of vehicle interested 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...

 in 1913 for its ability to tow heavy artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...

 on every field and the TAR (Tracteur d'Artillerie Roulante)
Artillery tractor
Artillery tractor is a kind of tractor, also referred to as a gun tractor, a vehicle used to tow artillery pieces of varying weights.-Traction:...

 was built. The buyers of this vehicle could benefit from a 30 percent rebate in compensation for mobilization in case of war.

After the World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, Latil began to build tractors for agriculture and forest exploitation and trucks for civil engineering.

Merger

In 1955, Latil was merged with Somua
Somua
Somua, an acronym for Société d'outillage mécanique et d'usinage d'artillerie, was a French company that manufactured machinery and vehicles. A subsidiary of Schneider, Somua was based in Saint-Ouen....

 and Renault's
Renault Trucks
Renault Trucks is a French truck manufacturer with its corporate headquarters at Saint-Priest near Lyon. Originally part of Renault, it has been owned by Volvo Group since 2001....

 truck and bus producing operations to form Saviem
Saviem
Saviem is a French manufacturer of trucks and buses and a part of the Renault group...

.

External links

  • http://www.autogallery.org.ru/glatil.htm
  • http://www.avant-train-latil.com/
  • http://www.patriotfiles.com/forum/showthread.php?t=109962
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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