Renault

"On March 7, 1911, three years to the day after the creation of the prize, Eugène Renaux (a Peugeot dealer) and his passenger Albert Senouque tried their luck on a military-type “Maurice Farman” equipped with a robust 50 HP Renault engine. Departure from Bue, a stopover of about twenty minutes in Nevers, navigation by compass, the spires of the Clermont-Ferrand cathedral, the summit of the puy de Dôme. A trouble-free flight. The feat is timed at five hours ten minutes forty-six seconds."

"SINCE the arrival of the socialists in power in France, Michelin has become even more secretive. Roger Quillot, the senator-mayor of Clermont-Ferrand, is at the Ministry of Urban Planning and Housing. Pierre Dreyfus, the former president of Renault — Citroën’s former enemy — is at the Ministry of Industry on Rue de Grenelle. The communist Charles Fiterman, Minister of Transport, intends to favor the SNCF at the expense of road transport. The Communist Party demands to include Michelin on the next list of nationalizable companies. François Michelin, who apparently had little affinity with previous Elysée teams, now resides on his lands, erecting new walls. Last June, before his shareholders, he once again expressed concern about “the gap that often exists between industrial and economic reality and the perception that political circles have of it.” Once again, he went to war against “the scarcity of savings and especially the abusive use of credit, not for the creation of means of production but for financing that is not a source of wealth, such as state deficits, consumer credits, excessive working capital of companies.”"

"By 1948, the bottlenecks are clearing, and automobile manufacturing resumes its momentum. Citroën that year produces thirty-four thousand one hundred sixty-five cars, surpassing Renault (twenty-nine thousand nine hundred twenty cars), Peugeot (nineteen thousand three hundred ten), Simca (nine thousand nine hundred seventy), and the distant outsiders such as Talbot, Salmson, Panhard, Delahaye, or Ford."

"In Clermont, the engineers of the company do not want to hear about the “Salmon 200 HP” engines sent by the Ministry of War to equip the Breguet-Michelin. They demand the most powerful and lightest engines possible “to rise quickly, fly long and with certainty.” The only ones matching what the Michelin people want are those manufactured in Billancourt by Louis Renault. Moreover, the planes need to be equipped with bomb launchers and sights capable of carrying four hundred kilos of projectiles with a range of four hundred kilometers. These proposals are finally accepted. Very quickly, André Michelin obtains the demobilization of the engineer responsible for tire manufacturing who is in Auxerre. He will organize, in record time, the production for the Minister of War. Five versions of these Breguet-Michelin will be studied, and two models—equipped with Renault engines—will be mass-produced. When the war ends, seven planes will leave the workshops of Clermont-Ferrand each day. A fantastic pace."

"On his turf, most of the work is done. Bibendum, popular and dynamic, reigns supreme. One by one, he managed to convince car manufacturers to pay more for their tires by guaranteeing them, in return, quality and longevity. Michelin is the number 1 at Renault (which stopped tire manufacturing in 1955), at Peugeot, and of course, still one hundred percent at Citroën. Despite its higher prices and imperial commercial methods — you have to comply with its conditions or risk not being delivered[37](private://read/01jkqdqdgs7t399cyecbezrhj0/#ftn_fn37) — it already represents more than half of replacement sales."

"Buoyed by the success of Bendix, assured of the superiority of the textile production apparatus, confident in the efficiency of the organization he has established, Fayol thinks that the time has come to establish the product’s notoriety with the public—so synonymous with quality that it now deserves to bear the name of its inventor. He is convinced that, like Renault, Citroën, Michelin, the surname Boussac should be associated with his fabric. In 1953, he presents his idea to the great industrialist: — I must speak to you about advertising. Boussac first takes on a closed expression, but he listens to his general manager who continues:"