Before visiting Aventure Michelin in the heart of Clermont-Ferrand, here’s the other reason why I went there… In July 1979, I celebrated my baccalauréat as an industrial draughtsman. As the icing on the cake, I’d known since June of that year that my next ‘school’ year would be in Clermont-Ferrand, as an apprentice at Michelin. And not just anywhere: Place des Carmes, next to the historic site where the company’s headquarters are located today.
In September 1979, I moved into a young workers‘ hostel in Gerzat, close to the Michelin workers’ housing estate. I slept a few hundred metres from the French manufacturer’s test tracks at Ladoux (inaugurated in 1965), where prototype tyres were being made. And cars… I was 18 years old and life was giving me the wink of an eye: prototypes that were already very close to me! Less than ten kilometres from these tracks, the Place des Carmes in Clermont-Ferrand is nothing like it was 45 years ago.
At the time, my apprentice number was AP-16934. Every morning, my fellow students and I went to a small building opposite the factory, on the other side of the street. The bridge that spans the square, now pedestrianised, doesn’t yet exist. Nor does the tramway that now runs across it. It’s a different time: the second oil crisis has not yet hit the country and Valéry Giscard d’Estaing is inviting us to dinner at his home.
The factory was a hive of activity, with workers and lorries driving through a maze of streets. Further on, on another site, the first Michelin tyres were made for Renault’s F1 cars (which were just starting out) and later for Ferrari. Michelin’s F1 radial was going to give Goodyear a thrashing! I’m in Clermont-Ferrand: the Michelin city. The factories are IN the town… It’s still impressive today. Ironically, a few months after I left, Michelin set up the CIRM, the forerunner of the museum, next to the historic site on Place des Carmes: the Michelin Information and Meeting Centre.
My apprenticeship didn’t last for years, because less than three years later, I pushed open the doors of Éditons Michel Hommell at 7 rue de Lille in Paris to make my AUTOhebdo debut with Etienne Moity as my mentor. For all that, Michelin remains the professional foundation of everything that followed, or almost everything. And I waited 45 years to set foot there again and visit the Michelin Adventure. It’s about time, life’s little ship…
Everything has changed. This is not nostalgia, because how could it have been otherwise. I’m more of a fan of “it’ll be better tomorrow“, or as Sanseverino so brilliantly wrote: ”it was better now.” So I enjoy it. “You shouldn’t hang around too much tonight, Place de Carmes is a bit of a dive” I’m told at the bar where I start my day with a coffee to warm up the atmosphere. It’s 1 degree outside. I can’t find the building where I did my apprenticeship. “There used to be a school on the other side of the square, but it was relocated a little further on and then closed“, says the tobacconist where I play a lottery: it’s Friday 13 December, and I’m back where it all began.
What can I say about this factory that I worked in nearly half a century ago? Nothing, I don’t recognise anything, because everything here is new (below). And it’s brand new, because the architecture dates from the beginning of 2021! I push open the reception doors. I find a charming hostess who explains to me what this site has become: formerly an industrial site, today it’s the head office – since the early 2000s – at 23 place des Carmes Dechaux. “All the infrastructure in front of the factory is new,” says the hostess, who is amused by the reason for my visit.
Unfortunately, with a 45-year-old badge, I can’t go any further than the huge reception hall and photograph the site from the inside. But I discovered this new canopy to be very welcoming and, above all, very bright. Quite the opposite of the factories in my memories, where black was omnipresent. There’s a waiting area next to a bar, and you can even spend a few euros in the official Michelin shop, or discover the greenhouse area with an immersive experience. In short, it’s all new and shiny and clean (video above) and you can still admire the Puy de Dôme below, a photo taken in December 2024.
On my way back to the famous bridge over the Place des Carmes, I spotted and photographed the huge sign behind the factory walls. The name Michelin is written in a 1970s font, below. This is the heart of the ex-factory and I shudder. Another cup of coffee, a few long discussions with some of the people who work here, and it’s time to get back in my carriage (with Michelin tyres…) to go not too far from here, to the Cataroux factory where l’Aventure Michelin is based, right next to the ‘Michelin Motorsport’ building.
This historic Cataroux factory, in the heart of the town, is home to the famous museum, which isn’t really a museum at all. Instead, it’s a living space offering a unique experience, with a scenographic trail that opened in January 2009. The site is located opposite the Marcel Michelin stadium, created by Michelin in 1911 and owned by the ASM Clermont Auvergne rugby club. To get to the museum, a lot of work has to be carried out to keep traffic moving, which would make the Mayor of Paris jealous, but patience is rewarded, as we shall see below.
To give you a better idea of the area, here’s a bird’s eye view of the heart of Clermont-Ferrand: in 1 : the ‘toboggan’ tracks, in 2: the Cataroux factory, in 3: the Michelin Adventure, in 4 : Michelin Motorsport and in 5: the Marcel Michelin stadium.
The Cataroux plant is currently a major issue for the city of Clermont-Ferrand. It splits the town in two over an area of more than 50 hectares (the figures vary depending on the source, from 40 to 80 hectares…). It’s as if the Citroën factory at Javel still existed and was located on the Place de la Concorde in Paris! The test tracks (the famous Cataroux ‘toboggans’ above and below) are more than 28 metres high and are an exceptional heritage for some, filthy warts for others. Activity on these tracks ceased in 2000.
They were built in the early 1920s and came into service in 1928 in the heart of the city of Clermont-Ferrand. Varying in length from 383 m to 437 m, there were twelve of them in three buildings with raised ends. Inside, trolleys were weighted down and fitted with multiple tyres for long-distance running. The raised ends of the tracks allowed the trolleys to move back and forth constantly. Radial-ply tyres, patented in 1946, were partly developed here.
Our colleagues in Les Echos wrote in July, in the words of Françoise Sigot, that “the latest project, and not the least important, concerns the conversion of these tyre test tracks. In 2028, these toboggans, surrounded by production halls, will become a festive venue – see below – where 400,000 visitors are expected each year to visit the concert hall, the catering areas and the ‘City of Movement’, with activities provided by health professionals and sports instructors.”
The same Florent Menegaux was quoted in Les Echos as confirming that “we will eventually move all production at the Cataroux site“, and the headline added that ”the deadline is no more precise and, unlike many industrial site closures, this one is not causing an outcry. It has to be said that the group’s emblematic site, inaugurated in 1921, now only houses the production of competition tyres and a compounding workshop. And just 950 of the 10,000 or so Bibendum employees in Clermont-Ferrand, where there used to be more than 4,000 of them, are still working.”
Refurbishment of building 023 on the site (above and below) has begun. The town hall website states that “the project reuses an existing industrial building for a new purpose. The new buildings are integrated into its structural framework. The development includes several premises for offices, shops and services. The offices are located on the lower floors of 3 blocks of flats and in a stand-alone building to the west of the existing hall. The shops are located on the ground floor in a private area managed by an Association Syndicale Libre (A.S.L.) but open to the public. Finally, the project will create 515 parking spaces and around 2,000 m² of green space.“
TO FIND OUT ALL ABOUT THE REDEVELOPMENT OF CATAROUX LES PISTES:
Let’s leave the toboggans behind and push open the doors of l’Aventure Michelin at 32 rue du Clos Four, in Clermont-Ferrand ( https://laventure.michelin.com ). I’m not going to reveal everything about this museum – although… – because the visit is well worth the diversions, and for only 12 euros, not including children’s rates or other charges. Think about it when you buy your next packet of cigarettes…
Oh, by the way, I didn’t win anything in the lottery on Friday 13 December, but I did win everything on a certain day in September 1979 when I came to settle my suitcases here, at Michelin! Continuation of the subject with the visit of the Michelin Adventure in part 2.
