Just don't mention the war..

Good photo and a good find. I've been chasing a photo of a Peugeot ambulance donated by a Toorak matron in 1914 but without success. The AWM doesn't have a specialist curator for early machinery. There are lots of military history and military vehicle enthusiast people about online. The AWM has a large amount of material available online for the WW1 period. Combine with the now rare and expensive battalion histories and Bean's multi volume history and you can turn up quite a lot. I turned up twenty pages on a request from an old lady for more information on her uncle who died at Pozieres. Sad thing was I realised I knew more about his fate than the army ever told his parents.
Unlikely that vehicle in that form ever saw service. By 1915 people were building serious armoured cars but they were of no use on the Western Front. The British used some in the desert, don't know about Australia. Peugeot built a series of useful looking armoured cars they sold to Poland at wars end.
From a historical point of view - what was the vehicle purchase policy of the Army? Was the vehicle a donation?
I remember reading somewhere that the (unwritten) story of Rolls-Royce armoured car patrols in the Anglo-Egytian Sudan is quite special.
 
This must be a military staff runabout. Possibly 1917 type FE

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Of interest to some with Netflix is a series I recently watched called Women at War. Set in the early stages of WW1 in France, the series features a few cars and trucks weaved into the storyline. I recognised a Lancia but there is a another vehicle that looked a bit like a Renault to me, but not sure.

I googled cars in the series, but nothing came up.
 
The big contribution of French cars to the war was the Battle of the Marne in 1914. The German advance on Paris was stopped on the River Marne by a British force rushed across the channel and transported to the front by hundreds of Parisien taxi cabs. I have a picture of a Scots regiment arriving in a London double decker bus. The Kaiser called the soldiers contemptible, a title they proudly wore.
Peugeot driver Georges Boillot was allowed to keep his race car from the French Grand Prix as his staff car. For a time he was driver to General Joffre commander of the French army and raced him at high speed between battle fronts. Was it in the racer? When he was killed in an air battle the car had several hundred thousand k's on it which indicates how much useage cars had behind the front. His younger brother Andre took the car on and won a post war Targa with it. Became the top Peugeot test driver.
An account of travelling 200,000 miles in wartime France in a Peugeot was published by an Australian officer after the war.
There is an account circulated by members of the Vintage Drivers Club of a grazier who re-bodied a Peugeot as an ambulance and drove it in France during the war. That sort of thing certainly happened, ambulances were donated and people went to drive them but I can't find any info to verify this case.
There will be specialist works dealing with the armoured cars and ambulances and their work.
 
The series features one woman whose family (by marriage) run a truck building business - I assume fictional called DeWitt trucks (actually Usines DeWitt in the series). After a large order for delivery trucks (~7 trucks) gets delayed and her husband and male workers get conscripted, she convinces the wives of the workers to complete the trucks. Then the order gets cancelled in dubious circumstances, so she has an idea to convert them into ambulances. One of the other “women” in the title is a prostitute, and enlists other sidelined prostitutes into becoming ambulance drivers.

strangely they seem to drive all over the place in the series (both cars and trucks) but petrol never seems to be a problem, nor do you ever see them filling up petrol etc.
 
The series features one woman whose family (by marriage) run a truck building business - I assume fictional called DeWitt trucks (actually Usines DeWitt in the series). After a large order for delivery trucks (~7 trucks) gets delayed and her husband and male workers get conscripted, she convinces the wives of the workers to complete the trucks. Then the order gets cancelled in dubious circumstances, so she has an idea to convert them into ambulances. One of the other “women” in the title is a prostitute, and enlists other sidelined prostitutes into becoming ambulance drivers.

strangely they seem to drive all over the place in the series (both cars and trucks) but petrol never seems to be a problem, nor do you ever see them filling up petrol etc.
I have this memory of reading that Marie Curie spent a fair bit of WW1 driving a Renault ambulance with a very early field X-ray machine.
 
Over 1000 London double deckers were requisitioned and sent mainly to France as troop carriers. Most were AECs. Photos show them with LGOC still painted on the front. The drivers were volunteers and often had no accommodation except the bus.
 
I have this memory of reading that Marie Curie spent a fair bit of WW1 driving a Renault ambulance with a very early field X-ray machine.
I haven't heard that before but I really hope it's true!
 
In 1915 domestic demand for motor vehicles in France collapsed. A number of firms like Lion Peugeot closed. This coincided with Peugeot interest in the Australian market for the first time. There was a signifigant shipment of Peugeots to Australia that year that I cannot find a figure for. Despite the loss of their main factory to German occupation. I don't know if other French makes increased shipments to Australia.
 
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