Apart from the classic 4x4, off-road vehicles are often ignored. But some experts and enthusiasts study and collect all forms of terrestrial or planetary locomotion. Often, these vehicles will remain at the prototype stage because too eccentric, too expensive compared to the improvements or too far ahead of their time.
This site aims to summarize and share more knowledge on the evolution of these vehicles and their techniques. It still includes documentation of classic 4x4, ‘unusual' construction machinery and reports of visits of ‘old iron' museums.
You can see my vidéos on Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/user/ttboch/videos
Jean-Marc Maclou
J M M
If a picture is copyrighted, let me know, it will be removed immediately.
About the author :
Interested by off-road vehicles about age of 10, Jean-Marc Maclou sought documentation from Companies. At the beginning, his father wrote the letters. He collected all his life photos and articles of magazines and books for his growing collection. Long after, in the 80s, he took many pictures of vehicles in the exhibitions. But in the late 90s, the best invention of the 20th Century, Internet, greatly extended the scope of research and knowledge to the whole world.
In the meantime, in the 90s, Francis Pierre, President and Founder of AIPETHOAC (like HECA) : ‘International Association for the Promotion of Technical and Historical Equipment like Objects of Arts and Culture’, encouraged him to write articles in his magazine. Then, J M M created a little site in French in December 2009, and in English in 2010 : www.unusuallocomotion.com (about 15.000 pictures, 900 visitors per days mid-2017). A book (paper) in eleven volumes of about 600 pages each, from this site, was printed in early 2013 (Vol I II III), 2014 (Vol IV), early 2016 (Vol V), late 2017 (Vol VI), 2019 (Vol VII), 2020 (Vol VIII, IX, X, XI) not marketed (See www.thebookedition.com, electronic version available). It was deposited in different libraries (BNF, Library of Congres, British Library, CNAM, Polytechnic School Library, Marius Berliet Foundation), and the title of this book : ‘Unusual Off-Road Locomotion for Enthusiasts’ appears normally on line on their sites.
The author worked at Renault Agriculture. Now retired, he lives near Paris.