The new model of 1900 had a three and one-half horse-power motor and thermo-syphon cooling system. Many honors were won with these, and notably that of Louis Renault’s most successful use of one in the grand army maneuvers. But the output of three hundred and fifty showed the necessity for larger works. With the increased facilities of 1901, the product was doubled and the model increased to four and one-half horse-power, while eight and nine horse-power were winners in the Paris-Bordeaux and Paris-Berlin races.
In 1902 came another addition to the Billancourt works of Cloise to four thousand square meters area, and the Renault Brothers then changed their models to voiture légère, six to eight horse-power, steel tube frame and wood wheels—a full-fledged vehicle. They succeeded in the Circuit du Nord, organized by the Minister of Agriculture, for alcohol-motored vehicles. Then came the triumph of their twenty horse-power four-cylinder type in the great Paris-Vienna race, where it was pitted against forty and even seventy horse-power vehicles. The result was a great impetus commercially, and new shops accommodating a thousand workmen and covering thirteen thousand square meters, which produced one thousand four hundred vehicles in the following year.
Both brothers, who had always been at the wheel of their own cars in the years of racing, entered the memorable “race-of-death,” Paris-Madrid, in May, 1903. Louis arrived first at Bordeaux, but his unfortunate brother Marcel, while close to victory, was killed with the overturning of his machine only a few kilometers from the goal. In memory of Marcel Renault a simple monument was unveiled at Billancourt May 26, 1904, on ground contributed by the municipal council; a bronze plate on one side of this perpetuates his triumphant entry into Vienna, showing his arrival at the finish.
Louis Renault, since continuing the business, has now produced larger machines, including the sixty to ninety horse-power made for the Vanderbilt race in America, October, 1904.
MARCEL RENAULT