- Founded
- 1902 – 1982
- Headquarters
- Olten, Switzerland
Engineer Josef Wyss built his first automobile at Bern in 1902 and named it Berna after the city. Twelve examples of the initial rear-engined single-cylinder design were produced in 1902–03, including the surviving Vis-à-Vis Idéal. The front-engined, chain-drive Unicum followed in 1903. Wyss moved manufacture to Olten in 1904, added light touring cars, buses and two- and three-ton trucks in 1905, and reorganized the business as Motor-Werke Berna AG in 1906. After Wyss's departure and a period under British control as Berna Commercial Motors, passenger-car production ended in 1908 and the company concentrated on commercial vehicles and exports. Swiss investors restored local ownership in 1912 as Motorwagenfabrik Berna AG. Berna developed C, E, G and L truck families before financial pressure brought Saurer majority control in 1929. The badge remained active on vehicles broadly parallel to Saurer's range: U-series trucks corresponded to Saurer C types from 1936, and V-series vehicles to Saurer D types from the 1960s. Berna also co-developed the 2UM and 4UM military trucks, created the rear-engined integral 2H coach and underfloor-engined buses in 1952, built 1,600 2VM four-wheel-drive trucks from 1964–76, and manufactured 131 two-axle or articulated trolleybuses for Swiss systems between 1940 and 1967. Metal-treatment diversification began in 1965 under the Bernex name. Vehicle assembly moved from Olten to Saurer at Arbon in 1974 and was fully taken over in 1976. Berna's remaining activities joined Saurer and FBW in NAW in 1982; the Olten industrial successor continued in surface engineering and was separated into Bernex Bimetall and IonBond after the Saurer Group's 2003 sale. The vehicle catalog ends with the historical Berna-badged program and excludes later vehicles merely carrying confusing aftermarket or database labels.
Text adapted from “Berna” on Wikipedia ↗ · CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗