Maternity room for four!

In the mid-range truck segment, Renault was represented around 1970 with the SAVIEM SM series. As several manufacturers wanted to build a new model range in the same segment, the Club of Four was created, consisting of DAF, Magirus-Deutz, SAVIEM and Volvo. These brands agreed on a joint design for cab and chassis. This would lead to considerable cost savings.

For this purpose the company European Truck Development (ETD) was founded with its headquarters in the Netherlands. As far as development was concerned, ETD was located at SAVIEM, which five years earlier opened a brand new development centre in Villiers-Saint-Frédéric west of Paris.

The first step towards the creation of a completely new cabin consisted of the assignment to Renault Centre de Style to submit proposals.The cabin not only had to be modern in design, but also had to be able to be tilted. Initially there was also the idea of building the models of the four participating brands in one factory, but this was abandoned at an early stage.

Robert Broyer was one of the designers who threw himself into the project.  Robert: "I remember that a lot of scale-models were made for this project. I delivered two models with the same basic cabin, but one for lighter payload and a second for a higher segment".

Robert shows a preserved photograph showing his models. The basic shapes of the well-known SAVIEM J-series cab can already be recognised in it, as well as the arrangement of the headlights. Changes made to the final production version include the addition of an extra window behind the doors, the distinctive beams on the front and side and the repositioning of the direction indicators to the corners of the cab. The shape of the front mudguards was also changed from angular to round.

Robert Broyer's design was chosen for further elaboration. Incidentally, this was not done at the Centre de Style, but at the SAVIEM development centre itself. Robert had had no further involvement in this.

Looking back at the project: "Among other things, they have made the top corners of the cabin rounder, which makes it seem less harmonious to me. The angular mudguards also fit the hole better than the later rounded ones".

The first photos of the cabin developed by SAVIEM show that the arrangement of the headlights and indicators are still unchanged. However, the central beam under the windscreen and on the doors has appeared and the mudguards have already taken on a round shape. The round shape at the top corners of the windscreen has disappeared and now ends in a more rectangular shape. The extra side window had not yet been installed. Furthermore, the back of the cabin was completely flat as well, in which a number of reinforcing profiles appear later.

In addition, the photos show various design proposals for the grille, some of which are closed or open. The name SAVIEM is printed in separate letters on the full width of the front.

Special and remarkable are the photographs that Robert Broyer shows of a panel van with the same DNA as the SAVIEM J series in the making. The characteristic beam is stretched over the entire bodywork. It was without doubt a proposal to replace the SAVIEM SG2-SG4 series. Not surprisingly, because the SM series (SM5 to SM8) that was running at that time and which would be replaced by de new J-series, had the same cabin as the SG2-SG4. In the end, this was not chosen.The SG-series remained in production a bit longer until, based on the first Renault Master, Renault Véhicules Industriels launched  the B-series with the cabin of the Master on a separate chassis.

In 1975 SAVIEM introduced the J-series to the market. Initially in the weight class from 7.5 to 13 tons and from 1977 also as H-series up to 26 tons. The well-known cab remained in use for no less than 25 years. Later as S- and J-series, G-series, TRM2000 (military), briefly as Berliet and also as Renault and Mack Midliner.