THE WHITE HISTORY STAR

This willys is not a M201, GPW or MB. Its a ITM. Its have a original MB body and chassis. More information about a ITM:

 

                                        Why is there so much confusion about the identity of ex-French army jeeps?

 

Immediately after the war the French government acquired about 22,000 MB & GPW jeeps from the American government to re-establish its army. Only about half of these were in good usable order. The jeeps were either purchased  as 'War Surplus' or supplied under 'Lend-Lease' arrangements. Others were simply recovered as badly damaged scrap vehicles which had been abandoned. In 1946 the workshops of E.R.G.M.( Etablissement de Réserve Générale du Matériel Automobile) at La Maltournée near Paris began the task of repairing and rebuilding the jeep stock. In reality it was not just a workshop but a factory complete with a production line for assembling 'like new' jeeps from refurbished parts. This work continued until 1978 and the jeeps it produced contained an ever greater mix of Ford, Willys & Hotchkiss parts as time went on resulting in much confusion about the identity of so many French army jeeps.

 

                                                                 The early years and ITM jeeps 1946 - 1956 

 

In the early years (1946 - 1956) only jeeps of WW2 origin passed through the E.R.G.M. works at La Maltournée. Jeeps that required only minor repairs or modifications e.g. conversion to 12 volt were lucky in a way in that they retained their original MB or GPW chassis identity which would be retained until they were finally demobbed and sold at auction.

Badly damaged / scrap jeeps were less lucky as they were completely stripped down to component parts. These parts were reconditioned in specialist facilities within the factory then 'like new' jeeps were reassembled on a production line or 'chaine'. Unfortunately these jeeps lost their original chassis identity and were given a new ITM chassis number and date of birth. ITM stands for 'Inspection Technique du Material' which indicates that the jeeps were not given their new identity until they had been accepted as meeting the required standard by the army. On the whole refurbished WW2 parts were used to construct these 'like new' jeeps but in the early 1950s Hotchkiss started making spare parts for Willys jeeps under licence in France so inevitably some WOF (Willys Overland France) stamped parts would have merged into the pool of vehicle parts.

The ITM series of numbers includes both jeeps and jeep trailers which were also being completely reconditioned at the la Maltournée factory making it difficult to accurately date an ITM jeep from its number. When finally sold at auction during the 1970s onwards, ITM jeeps were also often described generically as '42 Willys MB' , 'Willys MB', Willys US 1948 model. References to specific years 1942 - 1945 does not necessarily indicate the origin of the WW2 chassis in question it was simply a generic term used to describe the type of vehicle.