Founded by Louis Renault and his brothers Marcel and Fernand in1898, the company that would become France's biggest automobile manufacturer started humbly enough, with a solitary 13/4hp De Dion-engined prototype.

By 1904 Renault was building its own engines, and the following year launched the AG.

Powered by an 1,100cc twin-cylinder engine of 8 horsepower (8CV) and featuring the 'coal scuttle' bonnet and rear-mounted radiator that would characterise Renaults until the late 1920s, the AG arrived at a time when the motor car was beginning to gain a measure of respectability.

The unreliability of early cars had provided good cause for public scepticism but the advent of the 8CV, destined to become Renault's pre-WWI best seller, ushered in a new era.

Here was an easy-to-drive car of simple design, whose mechanical workings even a technically illiterate layman might begin to understand.

The water-cooled twin with its mechanically operated valves was simple and robust, qualities that en...