Among his first products was this, the Renault Voiturette
Which he followed up with other designs including the Renault 40CV
During the Great War, he designed the FT, one of the most influential tanks ever and the most extensively produced tanks of the Great War.
Even so he continued to work on cars between the wars...
But during the second world war after the fall of France he was forced to make supply trucks for the Nazis, though he also had his workers do deliberately shoddy work on said trucks. Regardless, he was seen as a collaborator and a traitor and his company was taken from him and, in part, nationalized. Even today, the French Government owns 15% of Renault S.A.
Never the less, Renault continued to produce cars in large quantities, including the widely produced 4CV.
and the Dauphine.
Today Renault is experimenting with electric vehicles with cars such as the Zoe
But there is more to France than Renault, such as the products of the company founded by this fellow...
Andre Citroen, who's company got its start making munitions for the french army during the Great War and then moved into making Torpedoes...
While he died in the 1930s, his company designed and built the the 2CV deux chevaux. First made in 1939 mass production was delayed until 1948 due to nazis. Even so the 2CV was an adaptable compact car that was easy to mass produce in large quantities and saw some forty years of production and 8.8 million vehicles made.
In addition to works which were intended to be made in large quanities, Citroen also developed high end state of the art cars such as the DS, which had revolutionary suspension and transmittion while looking beautiful.
And continues on making cars to the modern day.
Today France remains one of the big automobile producing countries of the EU.
Zor