Biglorryblog's most favoured travcelling cloggie Tim de Jong e-mails me this to say: "Hi Brian, en-route in the south of Francefor the Dutch magazine Truckstar, I spotted this typical French scene. A deceased Berliet GCK 160, which was made in the first half of the seventies. Left on its own for a very, very long time at some abandoned stone yard.
Look at the old, worn out tyres that nobody looks after anymore. This truck may have been used for water supplies and it really looked like it has served as inspiration for a character in Thomas the Tank engine. The GCK was a typical middle class Berliet truck. The French family firm bought the 5-cylinder engine from M.A.N. but I don't know how much hp it had. Can anyone else help with that perhaps? Berliet went up in Renault Véhicules Industriels back in 1980, that's 28 years ago. Renault based itself in the headquarters of Berliet, Vénissieux, a suburb of Lyon, where it still resides. But would the Berliet family ever have imagined Volvo having an engine plant on their premises as is the case today? Cheers, Tim." And Mr de Jong says he has more pictures to come---I can't wait! Now click through here for the Mother of all Berliets!
Picture courtesy:Foundation Berliet, Lyon - France
A long time ago I asked Renault's marketing & communications manager Penny Randall if she could get me a shot of a mighty Berliet oilfield truck that appeared in the Foundation Berliet newsletter. Well she came up trumps with this khaki-coloured bonneted behemoth above. As she tells Biglorrryblog: "It took a while but we got there in the end!" Indeed we did and I'm most grateful to the Berliet Foundation for supplying the picture...
The 5 cylinder engine from Berliet was own made ,only the injection came from MAN .At first the hp was 150 then 162.