Developed as a private venture for the export market, the M3 was built with the same mechanical and chassis components as the Panhard AML range of light armoured cars.

[2] The most popular variants of the base personnel carrier included an armoured ambulance, a mobile command post, and an internal security vehicle.

[2] It could also be fitted with a wide variety of turrets and armament, ranging from a single general-purpose machine gun to medium calibre autocannon.

[6] The M3's relatively light weight and the location of its air and exhaust outlets on the hull roof made it possible to design it as an amphibious vehicle.

[6] The first VTT prototype was completed in August 1969 and incorporated a very simple boxlike hull with vertical sides, a flat roofline, and a single 7.5mm AA-52 machine gun in a Creusot-Loire CAFL-38S turret.

[3] The AML chassis and drive train underwent some detail modifications but the overall design remained basically unchanged despite the addition of the new hull.

[4] The same Panhard four-cylinder engine type developing 97hp was retained from the AML; however, due to the much heavier hull this left it somewhat underpowered for its weight class.

[6] One major criticism of the early VTT was that there was no provision for the embarked troops to fire their personal weapons from inside the vehicle, necessitating a minor redesign of the hull.

[3] At the time, the two largest foreign clients for Panhard military vehicles were Saudi Arabia and Iraq, both of which had invested heavily in the AML series and were persuaded to purchase large numbers of M3s to complement their preexisting fleet.

[3] The M3 lacks specialised night vision equipment and is not normally fitted with an NBC overpressure system, although this was offered as an option by Panhard.

[2] The bottom of the hull structure is welded to a shallow vee to partly deflect the explosive force of a land mine.

[1] There are three hatches on either side of the hull which lift upwards for observation or engaging targets in the surrounding terrain with personal weapons.

[3] A number of defence contractors offer extensive overhauls of the M3 chassis and hull to extend the vehicle's service life and improve its utility on modern battlefields.

The vehicles were not well suited to the role, having a very distinct sound signature whilst the twin FN MAGs in the Creusot-Loire TL.21.80 turret were not capable of accurate fire.

[27] A small number were deployed with the Irish UN forces in Lebanon but were regarded as underpowered and lacking manoeuvrability and were eventually replaced with Finnish SISU XA-180 APCs.