Berliet Stradair

The Berliet Stradair was a French five tonne payload truck, sold as a rigid truck and as a road tractor, that Berliet built from 1965 to 1970 in roughly 3,000 examples. Berliet wanted a place in the fast growing market for urban delivery vehicles and set a demanding brief: a truck that was robust and functional and rode with the comfort of a touring car. To get there it chose an air suspension that combined leaf springs with air cushions, sold as airlam, and the name joins the Italian strada, road, with the French air. Under the long bonnet sat a 5.9 litre four cylinder engine of 120 horsepower with a five speed synchromesh gearbox, good for 100 km/h loaded. Nearly 1,500 orders arrived in the first months, but air cushion reliability problems and a Paris limit on the ground area of delivery trucks, which the Stradair exceeded, ended its prospects, and the shorter bonnet K range followed it from 1970.