Early years and predecessors

In 1898, Georges Latil and Aloïs Korn established an enterprise in Marseille (Korn et Latil) to market a Latil invention, the avant-train Latil, a kit to convert carriages into front-wheel drive vehicles. In 1901, Latil and Korn moved its operations to Levallois-Perret and created the Compagnie Française d'Mecánique et d'Automobiles to sell it in Paris. Despite an initial success, the company was declared bankrupt.^[2] By 1905, Charles Blum became an investor and administrator of the company's assets. In 1909, he took over the assets and created a new company called Charles Blum & Cie. to manage them. He kept Georges Latil and his brother Lazare as part of the technical managing team.^[2] In June 1912, the company was reorganised as a société en commandite par actions and renamed Charles Blum & Cie S.C.A., later trading as Automobiles Industriels Latil.^[3] That same year, Blum established another company to operate a fleet of vehicles equipped with the avant-train Latil. In 1914, Latil opened a new, larger production plant in Suresnes to replace Levallois-Perret. The Suresnes plant had 20,000 square metres (m²) of covered area in a site of 30,000 m².^[2][3]

World War I and market expansion

By 1911, the company started to develop field artillery haulage, for which they created tractors with the layout of a truck.^[4] Latil produced one of its first four-wheel, all-terrain vehicle called the TAR, which it sold to the army to use on the Voie Sacrée during World War I to supply troops with 155mm guns.^[5][6]

After the war, the company also fully entered into the commercial vehicle business, including trucks.^[7] In 1924, it unveiled the first of the TL series of four-wheel drive multipurpose tractors.^[8]

Late interwar years and World War II

In November 1928, all the Latil group companies were merged into Charles Blum & Cie S.C.A. which became a société anonyme and was renamed as Automobiles Industriels Latil.^[2][1]

In the 1930s, Latil introduced diesel engines using Gardner licence for direct injection.^[7][9] The company also opened a second plant at Saint-Cloud.^[1]

During World War II, it collaborated with the ammunitions company MAP and sold tractors under the name MAP-Latil.^[4] After the occupation of France, the Latil plants produced vehicles for the Wehrmacht and only escaped Allied bombing because they were in densely populated areas.^[10] In October 1944, Blum, being a French Jew, died exiled in New York.^[11]

Final years and merger

In 1945, the Pons Plan reduced the number of vehicle manufacturers from 28 to seven and Latil was made part of the Peugeot-led grouping.^[4]

After World War II, the company found it increasingly difficult to compete with its larger rivals.^[7] In 1948, it simplified its forward control range by introducing the H14 and H16 A1s, with a shared cabin, standardised components and using mostly just a couple of engines with Gardner licence.^[9]

In 1955, Latil was combined with the heavy vehicles division of Renault and with Somua to form Saviem. The Blum family and other stockholders kept shares in the new company until it became a wholly owned Renault subsidiary in 1959.^[12] The Latil truck range was gradually phased out, initially being sold as Latil and then briefly as Saviem-LRS and Saviem.^[13]

Following the merging, Latil's TL tractor range was also sold as Latil and then as Saviem. In 1962, the licence for the tractors' production was sold to the Creusot-Loire conglomerate, which marketed them as the Latil Batignolles.^[14]

Latil in the UK

Latil's British subsidiary, Latil Industrial Vehicles Ltd., was established in 1924. Up to 1932, Latil's products were imported from France. From 1932^[15] to either 1937^[16] or 1939, Latil licensed local assembly (mostly Latil's all-wheel drive tractors) to Shelvoke and Drewry. From late 1933 onwards, British-assembled Latil tractors were marketed as Latil Trauliers.^[15]

After World War II, Latil's tractors in the UK were partially assembled by US Concessionaires Ltd.^[17] The British assembled tractors usually changed the original engines for local ones, mostly Meadows units.^[15][17]

Commercial vehicles

Tractors and military vehicles