Breda (mechanical engineering)

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Breda was a big Italian engineering - companies based in Sesto San Giovanni , a suburb of Milan . Part of the old factory in Sesto San Giovanni now houses the Museo dell'Industria e del Lavoro , a museum for technology and mechanical engineering.

Breda company emblem (later variant)

history

Ernesto Breda, ca.1920
BredaMenarini bus
Warrant of the Società Italiana Ernesto Breda per Costruzioni Meccaniche dated February 1, 1929

It was founded in 1886 by Ernesto Breda as a limited partnership Ing. Breda & C. after taking over the Milanese railway manufacturer Elvetica and was later renamed Società Italiana Ernesto Breda per Costruzioni Meccaniche (SIEB) . First, steam locomotives and other railway vehicles were built. From the 1920s the company advanced to a world-famous multicompany and became an important producer and supplier for the construction of machines , engines , motor vehicles (except cars ), aircraft , rail vehicles of all kinds and ships .

During World War I and World War II , Breda was an important manufacturer of war material , and airplanes were also built until 1951 . Particularly noteworthy is the Breda-Zappata BZ308 , a large passenger plane that flew for the first time in 1948 and was way ahead of its time. In 1962 the company was renamed Finanziaria E. Breda and nationalized. In 1989 Breda took over the bus manufacturer Menarinibus from Bologna, which mainly specializes in city buses . The company BredaMenarinibus was born , which today also relies heavily on alternative drives (hybrid, natural gas, liquid gas, battery-only vehicles) in addition to conventional city buses. In 1992 she joined the Finmeccanica group, which in 1994 incorporated her into the Oto Melara company , creating the Otobreda part of the company . In 2001, by order of the parent company, Breda was completely absorbed by Oto Melara, while the bus, tram and rail department was taken over by AnsaldoBreda .

Products

Breda Tram in San Francisco

Breda was mainly active in the field of traffic and defense technology. In addition to railroads and trams , machine guns and automatic cannons up to 40 mm caliber were also manufactured (lighter weapons are mainly built by Beretta in Italy ). In the small segment of duo buses , Breda was the world market leader and manufactured more than half of the 400 buses it produced.

Successor company

See also

literature

  • Bill Gunston: World encyclopaedia of aircraft manufacturers. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 1993, ISBN 1-55750-939-5 , p. 56.

Web links

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