Locomotion en Fête 2018

UNIVEM was again there for the 24th “Locomotion en Fête” (the 2nd one at the Melun-Villaroche airfield), an event gathering all types of old vehicles: trucks, cars, tractors, firetrucks,…

For the military section, UNIVEM brought some of their vehicles: International M425 and its trailer, GMC fuel tank, tipper and cargo, Dodge Command Car, Jeep Willys and its newest one, the Diamond T M20. Except the latter, every vehicles came by their own means by road! (with the homecoming on Sunday under a heavy rain, which even led to some floods in the Paris area!)

The International and the GMC cargo and fuel tank were displayed around a DC-3 from a local collector to recall in the form of a real size diorama the airborne supplies during the battle of Normandy in 1944. They were completed by a lot of accessories such as jerrycans, barrels, boxes, or Pierced Steel Planking used for the rapid construction of temporary landing strips. Also to be mentioned: UNIVEM presented a “Follow Me” trailer, a Bantam trailer upon which a yellow and black checkerboard pattern cover was laid in order to be clearly visible and to guide aircrafts on airfields, as it was observed on some WW2 pictures.

Some other vehicles met in the military section: a rare german Sd.Kfz 8 of a private collector (the only one in France, and one of ten in the world), a Federal 606 of “Ardennes 44” association, used by the US Air Force during WW2 as an aircraft wrecker, an ultra rare 1941 Citroën TUB coming from the Netherlands (only two military versions are known to survive), a nice display of WW2 US pilots next to a Jeep “Follow Me” and a Curtiss P40, or even a Renault EG from WW1, a Sherman tank and an Achilles tank destroyer from Balmoral Green association.

This year again, this event was a great success!