Nowadays, going out with a six-cylinder Renault is still a great pleasure. - let alone when we dive into the pre-war history of our favourite brand. The editors of the famous French magazine ‘L'Illustration’ were given the opportunity to escape the Parisian city bustle in a Renault 40CV. An exercise that is still enviable today.
There are always traffic problems, as the article begins by saying that the driver, with the enormous Renault, is already waiting for them to leave the French capital with its far too narrow streets. They call the 40CV ‘a beast', which is fully equipped for the planned trip. They describe in elaborate, almost poetic terms, how the driver treats the car, as if it were a noble animal.
The enormous engine is described as a tireless heart of stone, which can drive one crazy or calm one down, at will. Its suppleness and flexibility are praised, as is the beauty of its metal architecture. "Modern industry shows itself as a creator of a thoroughbred, dressed in a shining garment with flowing lines. Man's most beautiful conquest may well be horsepower." Well, back then people did talk about cars very differently.
The driver gives it a quick checkover and then closes the huge bonnet. The power source is started, the car begins to move. The writer experiences driving the 40CV as if the big prow were to sweep away everything in front of it, so that the road surface is clear, before the wheels ever touch it. The car stands for tomorrow’s civilisation, driving on the roads of the past. Hindered here and there by buses, by trams and by lorries, taunted by policemen at various crossroads, the Renault slowly makes its way to Vincennes, freed from the large, suffocating city. The houses are less high and spaced further apart, with gardens in between. The people in the street are changing, too. Their clothes, their appearance, their worries. As if the 40CV is going to another planet, the change in the landscape is also described, when the first wheat fields, with their golden ears of corn come into view.
Of course, we must not forget that covering a total distance of three hundred and eighty kilometres was not commonplace in the mid 1920s, especially in one of the top products of the French car industry. The route leads outside Paris to Meaux, then along the River Marne to Château-Thierry. After that, the majestic car descends via Coulommiers and Provins to Montereau. Just before this city, they cross the Seine and ride along the river and then cross again through the Fontainebleau forest at Melun. Then, one heads north-east through beautiful Vaux-Le-Vicomte to Fontenay and then, in a straight line, through Joinville and Vincennes back to the capital.
If one were to do this route again today with a Renault like this, the experience would be completely different. After all, the city bustle has spread outwards. The photographs, which accompany the article, show empty villages, where bicycles, handcarts and horses provide the main means of transport. It is a world, particularly in France, to which one can only return in one’s dreams. Space, peace, clean air and a life, which unfold at a different speed. And, seen in this light, such a nine-litre, six-cylinder Renault 40CV is a piece of technology, which already represents a new generation of rich people, travelling in optimum luxury.