Evening all,
DEANB, thank you for putting all of these articles on here. I never knew that there were so many.
The Nigeria story is interesting, for the French always regarded the Sahara as their, “home territory”, and a gateway to the centre of Africa. There are many storeys of French vehicles tackling this route, either as “raids”, (expeditions), or just passing through!
During the 70s two operators specialised in running to Nigeria, and Bukino Fasso, Transports VIT, and Transports Chapuis. In both cases Saviem 4x2, and 6x4 , as well as Berliet 6x4 tractors and rigids were used, running either with conventional Savoyard tilt trailers, or similar rigid bodied drawbars.
Certainly when I was dealing with Chapuis, they did not regard this route as anything harder than the “conventional” routes that they used to the Middle Eastern destinations. I did have a friendship with one of the men who did this run regularly, there and back… and I think that it was Bullitt who after I had written what little I know of this activity, asked if I could get more details. This I tried to do, but sadly I was told that he was suffering from Dementia, so I did not press the issue with Marie Clare.
However I think our friend Davidoff, has a contact whose father drove for Transports VIT, so he may be able to perhaps get some more detailed account of this route. Most journeys were as a matter of course routed through Algeria initially.
Thanks again for putting this stuff up, I never realised that these storys were published in the UK magazines.
Cheerio for now.