French Flatheads
 

Just for curiosity's sake, does anyone know why the French used the Ford flathead V8 in their military vehicles up through the 1990's. The flathead V8 was an innovative design when it came out in 1932, but their have been a number of better engines designed since then.

the onlything i could guess is they must have had a lot of old military vehicles around that still used them.they had to keep making them for replacement.

french engines continued
 

1. My guess is the French military kept their equipment for a long time, and also may not have disposed of the engine stock promptly when it went out of service.

2. Simca manufactured the SUMB truck (I beleive this is the main source of the engines) under licence from Marmon-Herrington, I don't know if the engine was part of that licence arrangement, ISTR that Simca also manufactured flathead V8s in Mexico or Brazil. BTW it's a nice little machine.

3. Those engines were made up to quite recent times - I have a couple and one has a 1989 tag on it.