In Béziers, Alternative Propulsion technicians look after the heritage of luxury automobiles

L’équipe d’Alternative Propulsion avec, au centre, le patron Sylvain Nivet. Thomas Ancona-Léger – Midi Libre

Located in the north of the Béziers city, the Alternative Propulsion garage pampers little mechanical gems and works to preserve automotive heritage. A gathering of prestigious cars is being organized there this Saturday, January 11.

Don't be fooled by his gentleman-farmer look, but rather by his hands still stained with grease. Although he is now at the head of a team of six people and a flourishing business, Sylvain Nivet, boss and founder of the Alternative Propulsion garage, continues to put them in the engine. “Out of passion but also out of need, given the demand we have”, smiles this engineer who has worked for PSA and EDF renewable. And the director has reason to be happy: in three years his structure has not only tripled its number of employees but also its turnover.

From the 2 CV to the Porsche

So much so that the garage, which was founded in Boujan-sur-Libron in 2021, moved to the industrial zone north of Béziers in order to gain space, increasing from 300 to 600 m2. In the car park, there are some little gems of cars, Ferrari 308 GTS from 1981, Jaguar XK 140 from 1956… But also Porsches, lots of Porsches since the garage has made them its specialty. How far away the time seems when the establishment tinkered with 2CVs to make them electric. Retrofitting, this technique which consists of converting thermal vehicles into electric ones, now only represents 5% of the activity. The rest: mainly Porsches, then, but also some electrics and so-called “premium” cars.

Mechanic Lilian, at work on a Porsche 3 Litre SC. Thomas Ancona-Léger – Midi Libre

Automotive heritage

At Alternative Propulsion, we buy, we repair, we sell, but above all, we take our time. “It's not like in a traditional garage with appointment schedules, with us, there are no limits: everything depends on the specifications set up with the customer“, explains Sylvain Nivet. Like this Porsche, completely emptied of its mechanics, put under a tarpaulin in a corner of the workshop, which has been receiving care for over a year.

“They're old grannies, you have to be very careful”, confides Lilian, one of the two mechanics. Under the lifting bridge that holds the vehicle, he works with infinite caution on the engine of the model to which a small improvement has been added. “That's also our added value: perfecting the car with techniques that weren't always known at the time of their development,” he explains. “It's also a lot of responsibility because these machines are all linked to family and personal stories.” A responsibility that is all the more important since some parts are part of our automotive heritage. A heritage that is certainly not very accessible to the general public, but that the technicians of Alternative Propulsion are working to protect.