For at least three decades, the Central African Republic served as a major staging point for multiple French military interventions all over Africa. The Panhard AML (Auto Mitrailleuse Légère, or ‘Light Armoured Car’) was designed as a small, lightly armoured vehicle, best suited for rapid airborne deployments. Unsurprisingly, it saw widespread service in the CAR. Indeed, it became the first French armoured vehicle to see any semblance of action in that country, in the 1980s, when AML-90s of the 1st Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment (1er Régiment de Parachutistes d’Infanterie de Marine, 1er RPIMa) – a unit that spent much time training the CAR‘s armed forces – were deployed to patrol the streets of Bangui whenever there was any kind of internal problem. As of that time, 1er RPIMa’s AML-90s were usually painted in yellow sand and dark brown and wore the unit’s crest on the turret. (Artwork by David Bocquelet)