| Berliet T100 | |
| Body Style: | Truck |
| Layout: | 6x6 |
| Engine: | Drive: 29.61NaN1 Cummins V12 diesel engine, 7001NaN1 Auxiliary: Panhard diesel engine |
| Transmission: | Clark hydraulic-coupling semi-automatic transmission (4 forward, 4 reverse) |
The Berliet T100 was a special duty truck manufactured by Berliet in the 1950s. At the time, it was the largest truck in the world.[1]
Three trucks were built with normal control (with the cab behind the front axle); the fourth was built with forward control (cab-over-engine design (and sleeping accommodation)). They had 29.6-litre Cummins V12 engines, providing and later . The trucks were intended for off-road use, in the oil and mining industries, in particular petroleum exploration in the Sahara.[2] Steering was powered by a separate small Panhard engine.
The first two trucks were 6x6 flatbeds with gross weights of 103 tonnes; the third was built as a 6x4 dumper truck, for the uranium mine at Bessines-sur-Gartempe; the fourth was another flatbed truck with 102 tonne gross weight, or 190 tonnes as a tractor. It was experimentally fitted with a Turbomeca gas turbine in 1962, but fuel consumption was excessive, so the conventional diesel engine was fitted again.
The trucks were designed and built in secret, and with a tight deadline; the first was finished after nine months, at the factory in Courbevoie. It was unveiled, by surprise, at the 1957 Paris car show.[3] However, it was too big to fit in the main exhibition hall, so Berliet built a special external pavilion to exhibit the huge new truck. It was then shown at various other car shows - Lyon, Avignon, Helsinki, Casablanca, Frankfurt, and Geneva. It went to work in the oil and gas fields of the Sahara; after Algerian independence it became property of the Algerian government, and was eventually preserved in Hassi-Messaoud.[4]
The second T100 was built in 1958 and two more in 1959.
The second T100, having worked in Algeria, was later returned to the Berliet Foundation's museum in 1981.[5]
The trucks were stablemates of the Berliet GBO15, a 60-ton 6x6 truck which had been released in 1956. 45 were built, most exported to Algeria.[6]