French-born Adolph Kegresse first developed his half-track designs for
the Russian Czar in 1909. His early examples utilized Packard and Rolls-Royce
chassis. One principle application was the
Austin armored vehicle.
The Communist revolution of 1917 forced his emigration to France, where he
continued his work with Austin. Andre Citroën took great interest
and he bought up the manufacturing rights. The first examples were based
on the
B2
touring car.
The B2/10CV's proved themselves by crossing the
Sahara
Desert in 1922-23 and all of Africa in 1924-25, the famous
"Black
Journey". Later models were based on
Citroën
C4/C6
chassis. From the onset, they were used in many different roles in
the French and
Polish armor
corps and were tried by
numerous armies,
including the
U.S.A.
This model, a P17, is based upon Citroën C4. It is a replica of one
of the vehicles used in the
"Yellow
Journey", a daunting expedition that left Behruit in 1931, split into
2 groups, rejoined later, then completed their journey to Beijing, China
in 1932. It is currently owned by Lance Hellman. He found it in an antique
store in Massachusetts. I bought one at Lane Motor Museum several years
ago. The owner of the museum, Jeff Lane, told me he had bought them at a
car show in France and the fellow he bought them from had made them all one
at a time. They all are modeled after the same machine.They only had a few
and before I left that day, they were sold out. Here's the
real thing.