Inauguration of Arquus Heritage Conservatory
Created a year ago, the ARQUUS Fund for Heritage inaugurated the ARQUUS Conservatory on 17 June in Garchizy (Nièvre). The aim of this Conservatory is to inventory, list, contextualise, highlight and present the objects, documents and vehicles that make up the history of Arquus or the historic brands that are part of the company’s heritage. This Conservatory already brings together more than 70 military vehicles from the ARQUUS collections, but also from donations and very promising partnerships.
The challenge is to gather post-World War II vehicles, in service or not in the French and foreign armed forces, such as the EBR, the AML, the VAB or the GBC 8KT truck. In a second phase, the Conservatoire set itself the objective of searching for older vehicles, wheeled or tracked, belonging to its historical heritage. Some of these vehicles, belonging to the Musée des Blindés, were presented on 17 June in front of the
Conservatoire’s premises, such as the FT, the 1918 Victory tank, the Somua tank, the Renault UE35 caterpillar or the B1Bis tank.
An ARQUUS Heritage Endowment Fund has been created in order to collect funds, legacies or donations under the law on patronage (1983) in order to support the ARQUUS approach to the benefit of heritage. It is in this capacity that the Conservatory was able to carry out fittingout work for the exhibition on 17 June, and to receive donations and loans of vehicles which were lacking in its collection. The Conservatoire already houses a dozen vehicles from the Musée des Blindés (Saumur) made available by the French Army, the Paul Legueu collection, donated by the family of the founder of ACMAT, and a VLRA made available by Mr. Fortin, a private collector. Two turrets, the Mistral turret donated by MBDA and the 25 mm turret donated by John Cockerill have joined the collection on a LAV and the CRAB respectively.
The oldest vehicle in the exhibition is a 1916 Berliet CBA, donated by the Berliet Foundation, as well as a GBC 8KT from its Conservatoire in Montellier. This inauguration was an opportunity to present an exhibition by the Association RenaultHistoire, who devoted to the life of the Renault factories in Boulogne Billancourt during the First World War.