Cournil

Bernard Cournil was a French vehicle maker who progressed from improving other people’s vehicles to manufacturing his own during the late 1950s. Rights to manufacture his design were subsequently held by a succession of businesses in Portugal after the French creator of the vehicle had disappeared from the picture. The vehicle built was also called the Cournil, and was intended mainly as an all-round offroad vehicle especially suited for farm usage: it could pull a plow and was offered with a PTO, cranes, or even machine gun mountings.

Built mostly by hand his products gradually used more and more proprietary components, built by Cournil or especially for them. Production had still only reached a total of 850 units (most sold locally in the Massif Central region) by 1972. After filing bankruptcy in 1970 Bernard's son Alain took over, building 53 units between 1971 and 1977. This was a dark period for the small firm in spite of Bernard's close cooperation; Alain's operation was run out of a small garage rather than a factory and with credit hard to come by development came to a standstill. In 1977 the Cournils decided to sell the operation to two firms: the French rights went to arms company Gevarm, of the "Groupe Gévelot", while the rights to market areas outside of the domain of the French were sold to UMM of Portugal. This was also when the business was relocated from Aurillac to Saint-Germain-Laval. In 1980 the firm was taken over by SIMI of the Belin group, who built another 560 units until 1984, again mainly for government use. In 1984 Auverland took over, introducing a redesigned body for their "A3" in 1986.

Subject ID: 46046

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Bernard Cournil was a French vehicle maker who progressed from improving other people’s vehicles to manufacturing his own during the late 1950s. Rights to manufacture his design were subsequently held by a succession of businesses in Portugal after the French creator of the vehicle had disappeared from the picture. The vehicle built was also called the Cournil, and was intended mainly as an all-round offroad vehicle especially suited for farm usage: it could pull a plow and was offered with a PTO, cranes, or even machine gun mountings.

Built mostly by hand his products gradually used more and more proprietary components, built by Cournil or especially for them. Production had still only reached a total of 850 units (most sold locally in the Massif Central region) by 1972. After filing bankruptcy in 1970 Bernard's son Alain took over, building 53 units between 1971 and 1977. This was a dark period for the small firm in spite of Bernard's close cooperation; Alain's operation was run out of a small garage rather than a factory and with credit hard to come by development came to a standstill. In 1977 the Cournils decided to sell the operation to two firms: the French rights went to arms company Gevarm, of the "Groupe Gévelot", while the rights to market areas outside of the domain of the French were sold to UMM of Portugal. This was also when the business was relocated from Aurillac to Saint-Germain-Laval. In 1980 the firm was taken over by SIMI of the Belin group, who built another 560 units until 1984, again mainly for government use. In 1984 Auverland took over, introducing a redesigned body for their "A3" in 1986.

Subject ID: 46046

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