Alain Cournil, whose father created the Cournil line of 4×4 off-road autos earlier than he took over the corporate, died early this week on the age of 74. His son Christophe confirmed his passing on Sunday.
Bernard Cournil based Cournil after the Second World Warfare, the place he had served with the French Resistance and supplied very important help to Allied troops within the liberation of his nation. At struggle’s finish, he started modifying surpluses of American Jeeps and have become a producer, ultimately spinning them off into his personal model.
Though Cournil’s autos, which included agricultural and heavy equipment, grew in reputation in France, he constructed most of them with restricted assist out of his store. This ultimately resulted in monetary bother, prompting Alain and his spouse Myriam to take over the corporate in 1971. Nonetheless, financial considerations persevered till 1977 after they bought the manufacturing rights to French arms maker Gévarm and Portuguese agency UMM; the latter was entrusted with constructing the Cournils outdoors of France. Auverland subsequently grew to become the producer in France and Brazil in 1984.
Even then, Alain remained concerned with Cournil. In 1979, he greenlit manufacturing unit assist for drivers coming into the inaugural Paris–Dakar Rally in a single, which included Jean-Pierre Kurrer (completed fifty-first general) and Gil Guillot (completed sixty-eighth general). The next 12 months, Kurrer scored the automotive’s greatest end of twelfth whereas Patrick Thenoux was twenty-fourth.
UMM later entered the Dakar with the Alter, utilizing the Cournil’s template. The corporate proudly proclaims a minimum of one Alter reached the end at each Dakar it ran within the Nineteen Nineties. In January, João Costa and Paulo Sergio da Silva Oliveira raced UMM Alters within the Dakar Traditional, an adjoining occasion to the Dakar Rally for older autos, respectively ending sixty-first and forty-first general; eight Alters had been additionally dropped at the race to assist them.
In 1996, Alain grew to become a licenced seller for Mitsubishi earlier than including Kia to his portfolio in 2008. He additionally continued to assist Cournil and UMM by restoring them as soon as he acquired the required components in 2009. After his retirement, he handed down the corporate reins to Christophe and son-in-law Sébastien Carlat.
