Founded by Louis Renault and his brothers Marcel and Fernand in 1898, the company that would become France’s biggest automobile manufacturer started humbly enough, with a solitary 1¾hp De Dion-engined prototype, the sprung rear axle of which would soon be copied by many contemporaries.

Production at the Billancourt factory was soon under way on a large scale, demand for its products being enhanced by the performance of Renault cars in the great inter-city races so popular in France at the turn of the 19th Century.

From the outset Renault engineering was of the highest quality and the arrival of multi-cylinder models really put the company on the map.

By 1904 Renault was building its own engines: large-capacity fours at first, followed by the AX twin that later developed into the AG, famous for its WWI role as the ‘Taxi de la Marne’.

Messrs Renault and Frères exhibited five different models at Olympia in 1905, ranging from the twin-cylinder 8/12hp AX to the four-cylinder 35/45hp mod...