01 Le MONTELIER MUSEE de la Fondation BERLIET Page 2

Berliet seemed to be a French manufacturer regarding automobiles, buses, trucks and military cars among other vehicles situated in Vénissieux, outside of Lyon, France. Founded in 1899, and apart from any five-year period from 1944 to 1949 when it had been put into 'administration sequestre' ıt had been in private ownership until 1967 when after that it became part of Citroën, and subsequently acquired by means of Renault in 1974 and merged with Saviem in to a new Renault Trucks company in 1978. The Berliet marque was eliminated by 1980.Marius Berliet started his experiments with automobiles in 1894. Some single-cylinder cars were being followed in 1900 by way of twin-cylinder model. In 1902, Berliet took over your plant of Audibert & Lavirotte with Lyon. Berliet started to build four-cylinder automobiles featured by way of a honeycomb radiator and steel chassis frame was used instead of wood. The next year, a model was launched which was similar to contemporary Mercedes. In 1906, Berliet sold the licence for manufacturing his model to the American Locomotive Company.

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Prior to World War I, Berliet offered a choice of models from 8 COMPREHENSIVE RESUME to 60 CV. The main models had four-cylinder engines (2412 cc and 4398 cc, respectively), and there was a six-cylinder style of 9500 cc. A 1539 cc product (12 CV) had been produced between 1910 in addition to 1912. From 1912, six-cylinder models were made upon individual orders only.The First World War resulted in a massive increase in demand. Berliet, like Renault and Latil, produced trucks for the French army. The military orders placed major demands for the factory's capacity, necessitating major investment throughout production plant and manufacturing area space.In 1915 a 400 hectare site was bought between Vénissieux et Saint-Priest in order to build a new main factory.The Berliet CBA started to be the iconic truck within the Voie Sacrée, supplying the battle entry at Verdun during 1916. 25, 000 of these 4/5 load Berliet trucks, originally launched in 1914, were ordered by the actual French army. During 1916 40 of these were leaving the plant everyday. Under license from Renault, Berliet were also creating shells and battle tanks currently. The number of employees employed increased to 3, 150.By 1917 the price of annual turnover experienced multiplied fourfold since the beginning of the war, and a new lawful structure was deemed ideal. The company became the actual Société anonyme des Automobiles Marius Berliet.Following war the manufacturer reoriented part of its production back to be able to passenger cars, but Berliet nevertheless observed themselves with excess capability, as the army was don't buying all the vans the factory could make, and overall output halved.Marius Berliet responded for the outbreak of peace by deciding to provide just a single form of truck and a single kind of car, which represented a journeying from his pre-war market place strategy. The single truck which Berliet focused was the actual 5 ton CBA that had served the country so well during the particular war.

01 Le MONTELIER MUSEE de la Fondation BERLIET

The passenger car for being produced, exhibited on the Berliet stand on the 15th Paris Motor Display in October 1919, was the 3296cc (15HP/CV) "Torpedo" bodied "Berliet Sort VB" of modern visual appeal. Marius Berliet was probably none to miss a strategy: rather than devote moment and engineering talent to possessing a new car for the revolutionary decade, he obtained and ripped an American Dodge. The Dodge was famously robust, and the Berliet duplicate was well received in March 1919 when the item had its first open public outing, locally, at the Lyon Industry Fair. The headlights were mounted unusually high and the simple disc wheels were large, giving the car a pleasing "no nonsense" look. Particularly attractive was the buying price of just 11, 800 francs in July 1919. Unfortunately, however, the Berliet engineers failed in order that the steel used from the car's construction was with the same quality as the American steel used for the actual Dodge, and this resulted in series problems for the early customers of the particular "Berliet Type VB" and serious reputational destruction of the company.

Fondation Berliet 2011 Page 3

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The factory was set up to produce the "Berliet Type VB" with the rate of 100 cars each day which would have also been an ambitious target underneath any circumstances. The rapid drop-off popular for what at this stage was the manufacturer's merely passenger car model that followed the high quality issues plunged the small business into financial difficulties, with losses of fifty-five million francs recorded in one year. Survival was in skepticism, and Berliet was slipped into judicial administration in 1921. Marius Berliet himself had held 88% in the share capital, but was unable in order to all the company's creditors plus the firm therefore fell to the hands of the banking institutions. Berliet was nevertheless capable of retain operational control. During the ensuring few years, supported by a sustained recovery sought after that in turn reflected a good model strategy after 1922, Berliet was able in order to his debtors and, in 1929, to regain financial control above the business from the banks.

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