125 YEARS OF RENAULT
It’s 125 years since Renault was founded, and to mark this motoring milestone we reveal some fascinating facts about the French company responsible for so many chic and characterful classics since 1899
As the 19th century metamorphosed into the 20th, a company was founded that became a French powerhouse; so much so that it was once said that ‘if Renault sneezes, France catches a cold’. Société Renault Frères came into being during February 1899, aiming to make around 30 cars over the next year or two, courtesy of talented but amateur 22-year-old engineer Louis Renault. The firm rapidly outgrew the wooden workshop at the family home in Billancourt and started building factories around the western Paris suburb.
For all his expertise and ingenuity, Louis Renault was a dictatorial boss whose authoritarian regime drove the company’s early growth; by the late Twenties, 32,000 workers were employed. Before his death in 1944, he instigated the 4CV project which spearheaded the then-nationalised Renault’s post-war prosperity. Other successful models followed: the Dauphine, Floride, R4, R8, R6 and R12, along with hatchback landmarks, the R16 and R5. These sold in their millions – in the case of the R8, over eight million – and were especially embraced by Britain. Here, Renault was seen as less idiosyncratic and technologically eccentric than Citroën but more innovative and interesting than Peugeot. This middle ground appealed to middle England.
Renault’s century-and-a-quarter of existence has generated many stories along the way. Here we unearth some you may already know, and a few you might not…
A IS FOR… ACTON
Renault opened a British factory – to help get around import taxes – in Park Royal (formerly Acton Aerodrome) during 1926. Initially there were concerns about its remoteness from the capital – around eight miles! The plant closed in 1960 but Renault’s main London showroom is still at Park Royal.
B IS FOR… BOND
One of Renault’s more memorable movie roles was in Roger Moore’s final James Bond film, 1985’s A View to a Kill, when 007 commandeered a Renault 11 and managed to decapitate it and then lose its rear end in Parisian traffic (yet, despite this, it still somehow had fuel). Legendary stunt driver Rémy Julienne performed the memorable antics. A Renault Fuego featured too.
C IS FOR… COMMERCIALS
The 1991-98 series of ‘Papa! Nicole!’ television commercials advertising the Clio were so phenomenally successful that, when they came to an end seven years later, 23 million viewers tuned in for the finale. It’s still the most-watched British TV advert ever.
D IS FOR… DELOREAN
During the Seventies, Renault, Peugeot and Volvo teamed up to jointly design and build a V6 engine, the PRV. But one of
