120 Years of Renault – Renault Type A (1898)
120 Years of Renault – Renault Type A (1898)
At just 19 years old, Louis Renault, flanked his passion to his real job and from the barn of the family home, the Type A came out, the very first Renault in history. Built for personal flair and put on the road on Christmas 1898, Louis Renault drove along the Rue Lepic, on the Montmartre hill, one of the highest point in all of Paris. So, almost for fun, the young Renault’s adventure aroused enormous curiosity and interest in many people who wanted one, so much to pay a deposit. Two months later, Renault Frères came to life and the story we all know officially began.
The Type A, despite not having production ambition of any kind, had a series of measures that made it perfectly usable on the road. Light (just 200kg) and small in size, it was equipped with a small single-cylinder 273cc engine at the front and a direct-drive gearbox. The brakes were not comparable to those of today, but intervened on the transmission and on the rear wheels, slowing down a maximum speed of about 32 kph. History was made.