picture 181495

The Portuguese Army purchased 40 Panhard AML-60 armoured patrol cars from France in the mid-1960s. They were soon serving in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea, as well as with the Practical Cavalry School and Cavalry regiments on the mainland. Equipped with a 60mm gun-mortar and two 7.62mm machine guns, each AML-60 carried three soldiers and could reach speeds up to 90km/h. Later in the decade Portugal obtained 32 Eland-60s, a South African derivative of the AML family, as a result of Pretoria’s growing willingness to assist Portugal’s cause in Africa. Several of these vehicles from Santarém and Cavalry Regiment 7 participated in the events of 25 April 1974, in Lisbon. (Artwork by David Bocquelet)