UMAP

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Usine Moderne d'Applications Plastiques
legal form
founding 1956
resolution 1958
Seat Bernon
management Camille Martin
Branch Automobile manufacturer

UMAP

Usine Moderne d'Applications Plastiques , or UMAP for short , was a French manufacturer of automobiles .

Company history

The UMAP company was founded in 1956 in the northern French municipality of Bernon ( Département Aube ) by Camille Martin, who was then mayor of the municipality. The abbreviation UMAP stands for Usine Moderne d'Applications Plastiques (German: Modern factory for plastic applications ). From 1957 UMAP produced the 425 SM and the 500 SM, two outwardly identical coupés based on the Citroën 2CV . In 1958 production was stopped again. There was no successor model; However, the British subsidiary of Citroëns picked up the idea of ​​the UMAP again a few years later when they developed the 2 CV Bijou exclusively for the local market, which also had a two-door plastic body.

The UMAP 425 SM and 500 SM

The first and only vehicle from UMAP was a two-door notchback coupé with a sporty body. It is not clear who designed the body. Some attribute the design to Camille Martin himself, others consider the body manufacturer Jean Dagonet from Faverolles-et-Coëmy to be the author. In addition, Jean Gessalin is named as a possible designer, the co-owner of the French automobile manufacturer Chappe et Gessalin (CG), who was undisputedly involved in the technical implementation of the body. When designing the body, numerous components from Citroën's inventory were used in detail - parts of the dashboard, for example, were taken over from the Citroën HY - but individual parts from Renault and Alpine were also used.

In technical terms, the UMAP largely took over the design of the Citroën 2 CV. This applies to both the floor pan and the chassis. Initially, the two-cylinder engine of the 2CV with a displacement of 425 cm³ and producing 12 hp served as the engine . A version enlarged to 435 cm³ was only slightly more powerful. The most powerful version, the UMAP 500 SM; was powered by a 499 cm³ version of the two-cylinder engine which, in view of some performance-enhancing interventions, delivered up to 50 hp.

The 425 SM was presented at the Paris Motor Show in October 1957. The sales price of the SM Coupé was roughly equivalent to that of two Citroën 2 CVs or that of a Citroën ID . Production lasted only about a year; UMAP ceased operations at the end of 1958. Until then, only a few vehicles were produced. The sources on the scope of production are very inconsistent. Sometimes there are 42 examples, sometimes about 100 vehicles. The reason for the low distribution was on the one hand the high price of the UMAP and on the other hand Citroën's unwillingness to supply the company with parts.

Two UMAP 500 SMs took part in the Liège-Brescia-Liège rally in 1958.

literature

  • Jeroen Boiij: Pimp my Deuche. Presentation and model history of the UMAP 500 SM in: Thoroughbred & Classic Cars. Issue 1/2011, p. 100. (English)
  • Immo Mikloweit: Citroën 2 CV. The duck. Yesterday Today Tomorrow. Schrader Verlag, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-613-87192-0 .
  • Harald H. Linz, Halwart Schrader : The International Automobile Encyclopedia . United Soft Media Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8032-9876-8 .
  • George Nick Georgano (Editor-in-Chief): The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile. Volume 3: P – Z. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, Chicago 2001, ISBN 1-57958-293-1 . (English)

Web links

Commons : UMAP  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thoroughbred & Classic Cars, Issue 1/2011, p. 103.