Cournil

Cournil grew from the mechanical work of Bernard Cournil, born at Le Rouget in the Cantal on 25 April 1908. He learned repair in the forge and bicycle business of his father, experimented with machinery and gas-generator conversions, and became a prominent Resistance organizer during the Second World War. From the Chenier parachuting ground he and Harold Rovella helped receive agents and many tonnes of matériel; Bernard later received the King's Medal for Courage. The family chronology dates his Aurillac garage to 1947. Postwar surplus Willys Jeeps provided both work and inspiration. Cournil repaired and adapted them for central France's farmers, became a regional Hotchkiss Jeep distributor and in 1954 obtained a Willys assembly licence. He replaced weak gearbox parts with pieces machined in his own shop, substituted tractor-derived diesels, fitted power take-offs and implements, and progressively replaced the standard chassis. Those modified Hotchkiss/Willys vehicles are the development path rather than retrospective Cournil models. The first own Tracteur Cournil JA1 was homologated in late 1959 and marketed from 1960. Its reinforced frame, Standard-Hotchkiss 23C diesel and agricultural equipment made it more farm machine than leisure Jeep. The family site dates JA2 and its new body to 1961: thick folded steel, a steeply descending bonnet for visibility on narrow mountain tracks, live axles and leaf springs. This resolves a frequent secondary-source error that starts JA2 in 1964. That year instead marks the Leyland OE138 engine revision and the introduction of a differential-lock or limited-slip option. Around fifty later JA2s reportedly received Land Rover diesels, while small-batch construction also permitted Ricardo/Massey-Ferguson, Indenor, Saviem and Renault installations. Open, soft-top, hard-top, pickup, fire-service and equipment-carrying bodies shared the same fundamental vehicle; saws, augers, mowers, lifts, winches, cranes, trailers and PTO-driven tools did not become separate model names. Cournil reached about fifty employees and 120 vehicles in 1967. Alain Cournil's family account gives 1,087 vehicles for 1960–1977, corroborated by an Automóvel Club de Portugal preserved-car history. Later estimates of about 1,200 and of either 53 or roughly 80 vehicles during Alain's 1971–77 continuation conflict; none is silently combined into a false exact total. Rapid expansion, poor partners, unsold inventory and withdrawal of bank support led to judicial liquidation in 1970. Alain resumed limited assembly from his garage in 1971 but lacked capital for major development. In 1977 father and son divided the design rights. Gevarm, an arms-company subsidiary of Groupe Gévelot, obtained metropolitan France, overseas French territories and worldwide military rights; Portugal's UMM obtained its licensed territory and other export markets. Period Gevarm literature proves that 1977 ended Cournil-family manufacture, not the Cournil marque. From Saint-Germain-Laval, Gevarm turned it into a more standardized range: SCE14/SCE24 used a 2.6-litre Saviem petrol engine on short and long chassis, SCD14/SCD24 used the 2.1-litre Indenor diesel, and heavy long-wheelbase SCD28 used a 3.6-litre Saviem/MAN diesel. The numbers separated wheelbase/type variants; slash pairs in the catalog keep both official codes without pretending each body or engine installation was a wholly unrelated design. From 1979, 2.3-litre diesel SCD15/SCD25 and Renault-engined petrol SCE15/SCE25 replaced the opening families. A Perkins 2.7 diesel was fitted by the British importer, and right-hand drive appeared in 1979, but neither is promoted to a factory model without a type code. SIMI of Groupe Belin took over around 1980 and continued to market Cournil. It revised the chassis to approximately 2,200 and 2,750 mm wheelbases and used Randonneur for the short version and Entrepreneur for the long. Those customer-facing names overlap SCD/SCE codes, so their catalog rows are explicit aliases/market families rather than extra production to be added twice. PSA XD3P diesel and XD2PS turbodiesel choices joined continuing Renault/Saviem units. The 1982 Tropic was a leisure-oriented short-wheelbase derivative and a reported commercial failure. A Cournil Dakar prototype competed in 1980 and 1982; Alain's unique articulated ADR trial prototype followed in 1983 as personal post-licence engineering, not a retail line. Approximately 560 vehicles are often attributed to the French successor program through 1984, largely for EDF, police, forestry, fire and other public services, but that total crosses SIMI, Autoland and Auverland ownership or badging and cannot be safely assigned model by model. François Servanin acquired the operation during the 1982–84 transition, briefly used Autoland and then Auverland. Cournil-derived SC and A2 vehicles continued, and Auverland's new A3 arrived later; sources differ on whether residual Cournil names or type approvals persisted to 1986–87, so 1984 is stored as an approximate standalone-marque boundary rather than a claim that every late registration was newly built then. The Portuguese UMM 4x4 Cournil, Randonneur and Entrepreneur are licensed UMM products, followed by UMM's Alter family, and are not folded into French production. Brazil's JPX Montez descended later through the Auverland A3 and belongs to JPX. The rear-engined, two-wheel-drive Brazilian Gurgel Tocantins is wholly unrelated. Twelve catalog identities account for the defensible French range: JA1, JA2, five Gevarm/SIMI type-code families, two overlapping SIMI market names, Tropic and two documented competition/prototype specials. Body conversions, implements, export engines and successor-badged vehicles remain attached as facts rather than inflated into invented Cournil models.

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