Hachette 1:43 Citroen HY LE Ambulance: Bastard ASPRO Tour De France

This model is sold in a blister pack

It is a replica of the ambulance used in the 1957 Tour De France

You have to go back to the 19th century to find traces of the company. In 1880, Gabriel Le Bastard founded a body shop in Rouen, rue Armand Carrel. This company works first on horse-drawn carriages, charrois and other carts of all kinds.

This profession was then in full mutation. Composed of workers working the wood to build horse-drawn vehicles, skilled blacksmiths to strap the wheels, their activity had extended to all types of vehicles. From the end of the 19th century, we find journeymen wheelwrights in transport in general: railway companies, trams and car manufacturers, even aeronautics.

The Bastard will move on to the automobile, which is gradually replacing horse-drawn carriages in the early 1900s, first to passenger cars, then to utility vehicles.

Gaston Le Bastard, takes over from his father when he “retires”. He will develop three main activities: the construction of passenger vehicles, the industrial construction of coaches and, after the war, the creation and production of advertising vehicles for which he will become the largest European specialist, winning a number of orders internationally.

As early as 1955, Le Bastard bodywork produced several vans for ASPRO. Including this model on a Citroën Type H base, difficult to recognize, it must be said. Used in all cycling races, it was used both as an ambulance for the Criterium du Dauphiné Libéré and as an ambulance intended to help spectators at the Tour de France. Several dozen models were made.