Renault

There is certain likeness between the history of this large French motor industry and that of other industrial firms such as Ford, Fiat or even Benz. All of them have been created thanks to the initiative and genius of a man. Louis Renault was born in February 1877, in the heart of the Parisian bourgeoisie. He was the youngest of five children (two sisters and two brothers). His father made his fortune in the trade of fabrics and buttons and his mother was the daughter of wealthy merchants. He had an early passion for mechanics and new techniques. This passion drove him to neglect his studies and spend most of his time in the workshop where Léon Serpollet used to build his steam cars. The Renaults had a second home in Billancourt, near Paris. This what where he used the tool shed as his first workshop. There, he tinkered with an old Panhard engine until the age of 14. Louis Renault would turn out to be intuitive and pragmatic. After his military service, with the help of a regiment comrade, he tinkered his De Dion-Bouon cycle into a four-wheeled small car and equipped it with an invention of his own: a universal jointed propeller shaft which included a three-gear box plus a reverse, with the third gear in direct drive. The chains and belts which had been used until then immediately became old-fashioned; he would patent the principle in 1899.

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