Louis Renault 1907 (42)

Louis Renault 1907 (42)

Louis was the fourth of six children of the bourgeois Renault family, born in 1877 and raised in Paris. His family was able to provide him with a high education at the famous Lycée Condorcet, but he showed a special interest in engineering from an early age. He spent every morning at a steam engine repair shop near his home and had turned the basement into a makeshift machine shop, where he would take any broken parts he could get his hands on.

Louis Renault became interested in technology early on. In 1888, when he was just eleven years old, he installed an electric light in his room. At the age of 14, his father gave him an old engine, which he spent hours tinkering with. His technical interest outweighed that of school, which he left without taking his final exams. In 1896, the nineteen-year-old constructed a steam boiler for which he applied for a patent. Renault began his military service after school. There his enthusiasm for machines continued unabated. In 1898, Renault built its first car in a wooden shed in Boulogne-Billancourt near Paris. With the money he saved, he bought a used Dion-Bouton four-wheeler. He made fundamental changes to the vehicle.

In the end, Renault’s first prototype, the Renault Type A, was released. Renault presented the Type A car on its 21st birthday in 1898. It was the world’s first car with a 3-speed gearbox and direct drive by cardan shaft instead of chain drive. In the same year, together with his brothers Fernand and Marcel Renault, he founded the company that bears the family name and laid the foundation for what would later become the modern Renault car factory. The first Renault was equipped with a 270 cc engine and produced 1.75 hp. It could carry two people at a maximum speed of 50 kilometers per hour. Renault enlisted the financial help of his brothers, who supported him in founding and developing his car company. He designed a direct gear shift system, which he patented.

At the age of just 21, in 1898, Renault built his first car, which he affectionately called Voiturette, meaning… small car. In it he managed to incorporate new things, such as a three-speed gearbox for the first time, but also… reverse gear (which was first applied to Mercedes cars in 1904). This car appeared for the first time in a speed competition on Christmas Eve 1898 and won first place. That day Renault received 13 orders for such cars and decided that he would build his own company.

Louis Renault was awarded the 1907 Nobel Peace Prize for his decisive influence upon the conduct and outcome of both the Hague and the Geneva Conferences. He shared the prize with Ernesto Moneta. He enlisted the help of his two older brothers, Marcel and Fernand, who had experience in business, having already worked in their father’s spinning mill. Together they formed Renault Frères (Renault Brothers) in 1899, Louis devoting himself to the development of models and the brothers becoming the best managers. However, within the next decade, he was left alone. Marcel suffered a tragic death in 1903 in an accident at the Paris-Madrid rally and Fernand, fell ill and died in 1909. He gradually retired from engineering and took over the management of the company.

With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Renault devoted its factory to the production not only of cars but also of ammunition for the French army (as did its major competitor, Citroen). The 75 mm shells produced had problems and production was halted, but Renault gave France a decisive boost with the production of the FT, a small and versatile tank that in difficult conditions greatly helped the French advance. The tank was designed by Renault himself, for which he was awarded the Legion of Honor after the end of the war.

During the interwar period, Renault appeared particularly progressive in his new ideas for his cars, and some of the inventions incorporated in them are still in circulation today, such as hydraulic shock absorbers, the boiler and compressed gas ignition. On the other hand, however, the way he managed his large business was increasingly authoritarian. He was a staunch anti-communist, stubbornly refused to negotiate with unions for the rights of his workers and often made anti-Semitic statements. The French communists listed him among their greatest enemies and called him the “dragon of Bilancourt”.

Renault visited Germany in 1938 and had a one-on-one meeting with Adolf Hitler. However, by the start of World War II he had become the main supplier of cars to the French army and Germany’s war against France found him in the US as the French government’s emissary to negotiate the purchase of tanks. Up to that point his patriotism is unquestionable. Things started to go wrong soon after the Germans occupied all of northern France. Renault’s factories were placed under German military command and it is estimated that from 1940 to 1944 its factories produced 34,232 vehicles for use by the Wehrmacht.

In 1906, Renault founded its first foreign factory in New York; 1907 in Berlin. Fernand Renault died in 1909 at the age of 44. Renault now ran its company, which had expanded into an industrial company, according to Taylorism, i.e. a scientific management system named after its inventor Frederick Winslow Taylor. By 1910, Renault had become the largest European automobile manufacturer. The company manufactured weapons during the First World War. In 1918, Renault married his wife Christine, the daughter of a Paris notary. This union resulted in the only son named Jean-Louis. From 1919, Renault was France’s largest private industrial company. For cost reasons and to remain competitive, Renault manufactured all of the car’s parts itself.

In 1925, the 40 CV luxury sedan appeared. This was the first to have the trademark of the rhombus on the car radiator. The poor working conditions led to frequent strikes. In 1931, Renault founded the S.A.F.E steelworks. Under pressure from the Popular Front government, he introduced the 40-hour week in 1936. When German troops occupied Paris in 1940, Louis Renault was obliged to cooperate with Nazi Germany. The so-called “strength through joy car” caused great fascination at Renault. Renault therefore decided to work with Germany. This “tank affair” and a handshake with Adolf Hitler in Berlin in 1939 gave rise to accusations of collaboration. After the liberation of France, Renault was arrested and sentenced to death in 1944. Due to the poor physical condition, the execution of the sentence was suspended. Louis Renault died on October 24, 1944 in Paris. The exact circumstances of his death remained unclear and led to numerous speculations.