Originally from Brethon where the municipal school bears his name, Jean-Charles Varennes (1915-1995) has written many historical books and novels related to the Bourbonnais.
Jacky Regrain, born in the Dunlop factory in Montluçon one day in 1939
Journalist, he has also collaborated with several press titles including Center-Morning and The mountain. Curious about everything, this teacher was interested in the history of the Dunlop factory from the time he lived in rue du Colonel-Trabucco, in Montluçon.
A nugget found in the archives of La Montagne
In our archives, we found traces of two documents typed on the typewriter. The first, which has sixteen sheets, is divided into two parts: “First steps Dunlop or Dunlop before Montluçon” and “Past, present and future of Dunlopville”.
All the major dates of the Montluçonnaise factory are mentioned until 1969, when the articles were published. The second part, entitled “Dunlop … In search of user safety”, is more technical. We talk about room control, research center and aquaplaning.
It should be noted that all of the documents have been reviewed and corrected, before publication, by Dunlop management. We deliver the best passages to you.
The most important factory a hundred kilometers around
In the introduction to the “Dunlop … In search of user safety” component, Jean-Charles Varennes writes that “Dunlop is the most important factory a hundred kilometers around the city of Marx Dormoy”. An amusing detail, the factory management asked the writer to delete this passage, “the Michelin factories in Clermont are barely 90 km away”.
A hundred years from Dunlop to Montluçon: the night the English razed their factory
A high and long white wall, corseting halls and chimneys
It is one of the emblems of the factory, the Dunlop Wall, of which only a few hundred meters remain today. “It has been almost half a century and this long poster lasted a good forty years when the traveler left Montluçon station in the direction of Paris, a high and long white wall, corset halls and chimneys, repeated tirelessly in high black letters Dunlop , Dunlop, Dunlop ”…
A global firm known from five continents
Dunlop Montluçon is just “a subsidiary,” recalls the writer. “One of the hundred and fourteen factories of this global firm employing more than 100,000 people of all races and colors in all latitudes. As under the empire of Charles V, the sun does not set on the name of Dunlop. ” Dunlop is not just the tire, continues Jean-Charles Varennes. “It is also a number of details of our daily life. Twenty-three exactly without counting the tennis balls because, let us not forget, this house is of English origin: mattresses, bolsters, pillows, rugs, raincoats, slippers, pavements, wall coverings, stair coverings, garden hoses, etc … “. “Wherever you are, there is always a Dunlop for you,” writes the writer.
June 9, 2020, a splendid date for Montluçon
In the early 1920s, Dunlop France was looking to expand. That’s good, Montluçon has a large plot of land and buildings already constructed and immediately usable: those of the loading or pyrotechnic workshop, a factory dedicated to the production of buses. “June 9, 1920 was a great date for Montluçon. Dunlop bought the state’s loading shops that day and decided to set up a major factory as soon as possible, reports Jean-Charles Varennes. Such a purchase was for Montluçon the renewal of its lease with industrial prosperity ”.
The incredible resistance of the Cord tire
With its new factory located in Montluçon, Dunlop is launching a new tire: the Dunlop-Cord, which is quickly becoming the best tire on the world market. “It brought together flexibility and duration, qualities made all the more necessary as the speed of the cars increased.” “From then on,” continues the writer, “the life of the Montluçon factory will merge with that of the Dunlop firm. The trials, the discoveries, the progress of one affecting the other. “
Dunlop supported 30,000 people in 1969
At the beginning of 1969, 4,000 people worked at Dunlop Montluçon, “supporting their families and the number of traders whose total number can be estimated at around 30,000 people”. According to Jean-Charles Varennes, “it is a quarter of the region’s population that enjoys a beneficial influence, all the more so since almost half of the investments made each year to maintain and modernize the plant are reserved for small and medium-sized businesses in the city ”.
On the way to the factory, the cyclist is king
“This is a particularly Montluconnais character: on the way to its factory, cycling is king,” describes Jean-Charles Varennes. This human flow is international, realizing for a long time the Europe of the workforce and even Africa. And many of these workers, of various origins who have been rubbing shoulders for decades and participating in the same task under the same white-blue sky of the Bourbonnais, find their unity in the same anonymous stream that comes or goes in the direction of Dunlop “.
Fabrice Redon
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