Pour la sauvegarde et la valorisation de notre Culture Industrielle

Fondation de l'Automobile Marius Berliet

Archives

A resource centre opened to all people interested in trucks and cars.

Within its missions of protection and valorisation of the industrial heritage, the Berliet Foundation has been developing since 1982, a Documentation and Archives Centre which now fills 3 000 meters of shelves.

It contains official archives from Renault VI and its main original manufacturers BERLIET and SAVIEM, which account for around 800 meters.

1 000 meters are filled with technical and commercial documents from other automotive and components manufacturers, 1500 magazines, more than 5 000 books and dossiers, 80 000 photos and also films, videos, CDs, drawings, posters…..

These invaluable resources have been built up thanks to many donations of the Berliet family, Renault Trucks active and retired personnel, ex Berliet and Saviem workers and managers, journalists and more generally enthusiasts of the automotive industry.

Three permanent staff take care of these documents.

Volunteers, most of them being retired managers and workers from the automotive industry, are organised in working groups to select, classify archives or write studies on the company’s organisation and structure and on specific key products or disappeared manufacturers.

The Centre maintains its own database, strong of more than 30 000 references, or 300 000 pages, figures which are growing regularly.

Documentalists can then provide information to students, researchers, journalists, writers, publishers, car collectors, Renault Trucks departments and other companies on request.

More than 30 major university thesis have been achieved by using documentation from the Centre in various areas such as History, Art History, Geography, Economy, city planning….