Military vehicle enthusiast and restorer Baz England-Davis on locating, importing, and restoring a French Peugeot P4 VLTT
I
have had several French soft skins, and currently run a low mileage Hotchkiss M201. Wanting to add to my growing collection of French vehicles, I decided – as the French Army did – to ‘upgrade’ and purchased a Peugeot P4 to drive instead of my Hotchkiss.
When the French realised the Hotchkiss was rapidly becoming obsolete, the government investigated replacing it with a homegrown product to be launched in the late 1970s. After abortive attempts to get the French motor industry interested in a small order of military vehicles, it was thought joint ventures could create the necessary volumes of units needed to interest larger motor manufacturers across Europe.
France approached Germany as the country was replacing its homegrown vehicle fleet, and a joint plan was devised to produce a vehicle based on the Mercedes ‘G Wagen’.
The French insisted that any vehicle they used needed to have a fair percentage of French automotive components. A deal was struck whereby the French would have access to German bodies/chassis and other components, but add their own two-litre Peugeot engine, Peugeot gearbox and ancillaries - all sourced from current production lines of the 1980s 504 and 604 cars. In effect, the Peugeot P4 was to be an even mix of Mercedes and Peugeot parts.
‘Wanting to add to my growing collection of French vehicles, I decided – as the French Army did – to ‘upgrade’’
Germans insisted the P4 could not be sold by the French abroad so as not to undermine their G Wagen sales. So, the P4 stayed in France (and its colonies), which is why they are not a common sight outside France.
As most people do nowadays, I started my search to find one on the internet. But it soon became apparent P4s that are for sale do not often make it across the channel to the UK.
Dealers in France seemed to have plenty of restored examples, but I wanted one straight from the army that had not been touched, and not too ‘civilianised’.
Facebook is a useful tool for tracking vehicles. If you inspect the Facebook pages of enthusiasts/groups, this sometimes exposes interesting items in the background and while browsing through a French military vehicle collective I saw a line of sad-looking P4s in the background of one picture. A few well-placed questions (using Google translate) to the group and I had found an available P4.
SPECIFICATIONS
Make Peugeot Model P4
Nationality French Year 1980s Production Run 13,500 Engine Peugeot Type XD3
Fuel Diesel Displacement 2.5 lit Transmission Peugeot Type Manual Gears Five (four forward) Suspension Independent coil Brakes Vacuum assisted Wheels Pressed steel rims Tyres R16
Crew/seats Four
I was sent a video of it running and driving (a few metres) and pictures of the front, rear and side. Unfortunately, it was in the South of France and was without MOT or a ‘carte grise’ grey card – basically a V5. It was at this point of negotiations that the dreaded Covid struck and we went into lockdown.
Over the ensuing weeks, I went about working out costings for moving the vehicle, both by myself and companies advertising on the net. I was eventually tipped off by a friend that a chap who did regular runs into France could perhaps find space on his lorry to bring it back for a fee. I made contact and a deal was made. I then contacted the owner of the P4, and he took a deposit that evening.
The vehicle was mine and it arrived in the UK within days – all for an extremely reasonable price.
It was dropped off on the outskirts of London in a vacant film lot and I travelled up with a friend to pick it up, along with a trailer that came with it. When I saw the P4 for the first time ‘in the flesh’ I was instantly smitten by this ‘French fancy’. It is a good-looking piece of kit, with all the same basic proportions as the Germanic 80s saloons I had grown up with. It has a large angular body, big windscreen, square headlamps and even an ashtray (full of cigarette butts).
The fun started immediately as we needed to get it off the low-loader, but it did not have a battery fitted. We battled for a while in the hot sun just trying to get the bonnet open but failed. As the driver was in a hurry, we had to roll it off then and try to get it going with only a minimum of tools. It transpired that the bonnet release cable was stretched, so it needed manual intervention, but this manual intervention went on for hours.
By the time we opened the bonnet the entire front of the vehicle was disassembled on the floor. We had also become a local tourist attraction as ‘film types’ circulated us with intrigue probably wondering what film we were working on. We eventually got it running and I took my first drive. The engine looked brand new as did the chassis and exhaust system. After a quick search, we found a rebuild plate and could see the vehicle had been completely overhauled in 1999 and probably not used much since. Back in the workshop, I began to strip the vehicle down. I had not worked on one of these before, so was interested to see how it was put together.
The wheels were standard, as were the axles and chassis. I can see how they improved on the box section chassis types (as used by Land Rover etc) and instead used open-ended cylindrical chassis members – so it had the strength it needed but could be drained easily.
The body was pressed steel and coated with some incredible sealant we could not get off, even when we tried burning it. This had been great news for the body but meant any dings exposed the metal bodywork to water and the sealant held it there causing a few areas of rust. The rubber ‘rubbing strips’ along the body length had also trapped moisture and created some rot in places.
‘After 20 years of driving Hotchkiss and older French military vehicles, the P4 is a dream’
The body design was faultless. I have never seen so many drain holes before and you could even get your hand inside the sills to clean them out through one of a dozen access points. I must have removed at least five to six pounds of sand and dirt from these areas. A lot of it was red, so maybe the vehicle had been to central Africa. Hats off to the designers – they had applied a great deal of learning from previous 4x4s to this design.
While clearing out the sills I started to pull out pieces of fibre – fibreglass or dreaded asbestos I thought – but it turned out to be load-speaker fabric.
It seems one of the enterprising army drivers had installed his own stereo in the vehicle. The stereo was long gone, but the speaker had been hidden in the ‘A’ post and had fallen into the sill and was still there. As the Jeep had come directly from the auction (still with traces of the auction number present on the windscreen) we guessed it was a nonofficial mod made during its period of service with the French logistical corps (503e Regiment de Trains).
The running gear – chassis and the underneath of the vehicle – was inspected and needed no work and with the nearly new engine, it was mechanically spot on. The stripdown continued – there were gremlins in the works with the electrical system while our second interesting ‘find’ materialised. The rear light clusters were problematic on the driver’s side, so we took the light cluster out and to our amazement there was a fractured wire leading to the indicator. The French mechanic had ‘fixed’ the light by using a chewing gum wrapper to bridge the gap. We later found the rest of the packet behind the light – menthol flavour we noted. I had only heard of this practice from ageing UK mechanics – so to see it in real life was amusing.
We stripped the body down and then set to with 180, 320 then 500 grit sanding pads to get a lovely smooth finish. This was covered over by two thick coats of bar coat, a further flattening back then a complete painting in French Woodland green. This was the base coat for the three-tone French camouflage.
I consulted with several people in different French chat rooms about this ‘Kermit green’ as we came to call it. Once it had been applied, we added the ‘mud’ brown areas, feeling this was the right order to approach the painting as the inevitable black overspray was a lesser evil than a bright green one.
It seemed even the French were split in opinion about the right shade of green to use with numerous RAL numbers being quoted. To that end, I took the grille to a paint outlet and they used test cards to match the paint. In the end, we decided to give the P4 a fresh new feel so went quite bright. It has a divided opinion on forums, but I am staying quiet.
The wiring was tackled next, and to keep things as original as possible, the broken indicator switch was replaced by one salvaged from a French SUMB lorry and it turned out to be the very same switch. I also had to deal with something very novel – a hot air system. As owners of older military vehicles know, a hot air heating system is a luxury.
Another thing I had to deal with was spiders. I had not seen so many spiders living in a dashboard before but conditions in the South of France obviously suited them. I was tempted to leave their cobwebs for structural strengthening until I saw where they had all come from. This was the largest arachnid I had come across since my visit ‘Down Under’. It was easily the size of a small child’s hand and was not happy at being disturbed. After some encouragement, he eventually ran off to sulk… somewhere.
The last item to tackle, apart from reassembly, was the windscreen. I had come across this design before: basically, pressed steel halves spot welded together. It was like the SUMB and a Unimog I had worked on previously. The corners had crumbled away resulting in a lot of welding and I felt this was one design element that could perhaps have been better. All the fluids were then changed, and the numberplates returned to their original numbers. All in all, it was a straightforward restoration.
‘This was the largest arachnid I had come across since my visit ‘Down Under’’
After 20 years of driving Hotchkiss and older French military vehicles, the P4 is a dream. It offers good all-round visibility, power steering, power brakes, the heater, and comfortable seats. Importantly it gives a smooth and comfortable ride on that coiled spring suspension. The roll bar and seat belts mean I can feel moderately safe on the road. There are even properly functioning windscreen wipers.
Off-road it is remarkable. I took it over some extremely rough ground and the articulation and grip (with 4x4 low ratio and diff locks) made short work of the steepest inclines and loose soil.
If there is one criticism, it is the road speed which tops out at about 45mph as the diesel engine has no turbo. You can retrofit a five-speed box from a contemporary Peugeot saloon car so that may be something to do in the future.
My thanks to John Pearce and Will Thornton for their help.
