Hachette 1:43 Berliet Vetra VBH 85 Trolley Bus

This model is sold in a blister pack

The company of Electric Vehicles and Tractors or Vétra is a French company mainly known for its production of trolleybuses but it has also designed electric tractors for quarries or mines, dumpsters, caravans (the latter under the name of Vétra -Soulé) and bungalows. Vétra was a design office and an integrator more than a constructor in the true sense of the term, all production was subcontracted to a large number of specialized companies.

The Company of Electric Vehicles and Tractors, commonly referred to as Vétra, was born on September 16 , 1925in order to find new outlets for the materials of the founding group which in 1928 would become Als-Thom (later become Alsthom and finally Alstom nowadays), a company itself resulting from the merger of SACM (Société Alsacienne de Constructions Mécaniques à Belfort , famous manufacturer of locomotives among others) and the Compagnie Française Thomson-Houston, see ( Thomson-Houston Electric Company ).

These 2 industrial companies already had the know-how and the technology concerning the construction of railway equipment , tramways (SACM) and electrical equipment (Thomson).

The headquarters of Vetra was located at 38, avenue Kléber in Paris in the 8 th ; the Vétra workshops were located at 85, rue du Général-Roguet in Clichy (Hauts-de-Seine). In 1956 , the head office was located in Paris, 79 avenue des Champs-Élysées .

In 1948 Vétra had a vast set of buildings of 6,000 m² built on 22,000 m² of land where the company transferred workshops and spare parts stores. The premises are located at 12 rue Masséna, in Rueil-Malmaison ( Hauts-de-Seine ), today occupied by the Renault Technical Center of Rueil (CTR), located at 67 rue des Bons Raisins, itself divided into two sub-assemblies: CTR A and CTR B, located on either side of this street. In 1952 , the Régie Nationale des Usines Renault ( RNUR) moved to the site of the current CTR B, in place of the company Vétra and in 1953 obtained the authorization to use test facilities for internal combustion engines and internal combustion engines.

VBH 85Vétra type B with Berliet PH 85 bus body