Anyone heard of the SUMB?

[AZBaobab]

It's supposedly a French military truck made by Simca. Officially, the Simca Unic Marmon Bocquet (hence the acronym). Anyway, before sluffing it off as French, it's supposedly got a Ford V8, and "Unimog type suspension and chassis" according to rrservices.co.uk.
It's got portal axles and maybe even a Renault 3.8L, 4cyl diesel from the TRM-2000 series according to http://www.milweb.net/features/sumb.php. (I don't know about servicing it on this side of the pond though...)

Anyway, with a starting price cited at £1500, I was wondering if they might be worth looking at.

[UK4X4]

"French military truck made by Simca"

Here's the issues highlighted for you

French
French military
Simca



Its still probably got the standard issue white flag in the glove box

[AZBaobab]

Meh, just turn the cab around and use the 14 (?) reverse gears to go forward, saving the 2(?) forward gears for reverse.

Seriously, has anyone heard of/used these things before?

[cumminscruiser]

Didn't Churchill sink a fleet of those in 1940?

[ntsqd]

Can't help with having heard of the truck, but I can mention that the French made the flat head Ford V8 long after production stopped here in the States. Amongst flat head aficionados the French flat heads are a Holy Grail of comparatively brand new parts. There are stories of guys finding them whole, soaked in cosmoline, and new in a crate as recently as 10 years ago.

So that it could be powered by a Ford flat head V8 is not only possible it's very plausible.

[fowldarr]

Are those engines in the same warehouse as all the military surplus jeeps? Sorry, couldn't help it. It looks like it would be a fun tinkering around project. But i've never heard of it, and I'm almost positive you can't get it here anyway.

[AZBaobab]

Are those engines in the same warehouse as all the military surplus jeeps? Sorry, couldn't help it. It looks like it would be a fun tinkering around project. But i've never heard of it, and I'm almost positive you can't get it here anyway.

http://www.usmilitaryvehicles.com/foreign.htm



Not that I know anything whatsoever about said company, but at least one CAN get them.

[charlieaarons]

I can tell you what Jane's Military Vehicles says about it, but clearly you aren't going to find any trained service people or likely even parts in North America. It might (maybe!!) be somewhat easy to work on; but not for sure.

Charlie

[iveco4x4]

Pulled one out of a french field once - they had been stuck for a while and very glad to see us - it was a very cold wet day in northern france

[nc_pinz]

Heard of them, but don't know anything about them.