"A lost battle is a battle one thinks one has lost."
- Marshal Ferdinand Foch
(2,000 points) Berliet was a French manufacturer of automobiles, trucks and other utility vehicles. The company's founder, Marius Berliet, started his experiments with automobiles in 1894. Some single cylinder cars were followed by a twin-cylinder model in 1900. In 1902, Berliet took over the plant of Audibert & Lavirotte in Lyon. He started to build four-cylinder automobiles which featured a honeycomb radiator, and used a stronger steel chassis frame instead of wood. The next year, a model was launched that was similar to a vehicle offered by German manufacturer Mercedes. In 1906, Berliet sold the licence for manufacturing his model to the American Locomotive Company.
Before World War I, Berliet offered a range of models from 8 CV to 60 CV. The main models had four-cylinder engines (2412 cc and 4398 cc, respectively) and there was a six-cylinder model of 9500 cc. A 1539 cc model (12 CV) was produced between 1910 and 1912. From 1912, six-cylinder models were made upon individual orders only. In 1917, Berliet started to build trucks for the French Army with production reaching 40 trucks a day.
Pictured here is a French Berliet VDCA supply truck. Sold Out! |
