3 Reasons Not to Hate the French Cars.
3 Reasons not to hate French cars.
I spend a lot of time reading comments on the internet that express the hate that some people have against French cars. So I think I need to clarify some things about them, to show you that they deserve some love.
I’m not writing this as a propaganda for the French brands nor because I’m a pro-French things, but because I’m a true car lover, and as a car guy, you may understand me when I say that hating a car brand just because you don’t like the car’s design or nationality is plain stupidity, we all have our own tastes. So here are some things you should know about me: first of all, yes, I’m French. Secondly, I love cars in general: I drive a 2005 Citroën Xsara Break (diesel, 90hp, 100k miles), and my two dream cars are a 1970 Dodge Charger R/T and a 1995 Nissan Skyline R33 GT-R. And Finally, this is my first article, and English isn’t my native language (obviously), so please, be kind.
But let’s not make you wait any longer, here are my pros :
1. The place of France in the Automotive History
Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, a French inventor, is widely credited with building the first full-scale, self-propelled mechanical vehicle or automobile in about 1769; he created a steam-powered tricycle called "Le Fardier de Cugnot". Father Ferdinand Verbiest, a Belgian Flemish Jesuit missioner, may have been the first to design and most likely to build, around 1672, "a steam-powered vehicle" but that was too small to carry a driver or passengers.
In November 1881, French inventor Gustave Trouvé demonstrated a working three-wheeled car powered by electricity at the International Exposition of Electricity, Paris.
The first car to pass the 100km/h bar was the French electric car "La Jamais contente" (literally translated as "the never satisfied").
The outlines of the current car as we know it are plotted in 1922 with Lancia Lambda and the self-supporting body and independent front suspension, in 1934 with Chrysler Airflow which introduced the aerodynamics, Citroen and the development of the Traction Avant (FWD) in 1934, and the introduction of disc brakes on the DS in 1955, or by Porsche and the box bevel gear synchronizers of the 356 and finally in 1959 with the Mini Morris with the first engine in transverse position.
2. They are great cars
This is one of the most untrue stereotype about the French Brands: "They aren’t reliable". My very first car was a 1997 Citroën ZX Break. Not very beautiful, but it had its charm. I sold it a few months ago for 250€, with +330k kms (more than 206k miles) and some bumps and scrathes (was involved in 4 small crashes, not by me and never in fault). Electric windows? Still working! Anti-start code device? Tired but working too! The lights on the dashboard were a bit too feeble, but she was still ready to eat the road for a long time.
And that’s what all French cars are, cars. by this, I mean that they are great cars that won’t fail you. Of course there are some that are worse than the others, but it’s the same for every car brand.
Indeed, I won’t deny that at some point of their own History, some French brands had a bad time. It happens, but sadly as we say "Il faut plusieurs générations pour bâtir une réputation, mais il n’en faut qu’une pour la détruire", which means "you need several generations to build a reputation, but only one to destroy it".
Nowadays French car brands are way better than you could think, so good that other brands uses engines, bodies or entire cars for their own product range (for example, Mercedes uses DCI engines from Renault for their A, B and C classes or the body of the Renault Kangoo for their compact utility vehicle Citane).
And indeed, don’t mix Quality and Reliability.
3. Their Racing Gene.
A little quote of Forza Motorsport 3, during the loading screen, once said "Peugeot is the only manufacturer that can brag about having victory records in three different centuries". That is actually true. Not only as a car maker of course, but that sentence still says something.
You know them : Bugatti, Alpine, Renault, Citroën, Peugeot, Matra,… Rally, Formula One, LeMans Endurance series, BTCC, WTCC, Pikes Peak,…
Every French Car Brand has won in Racing. And every french sports car has it in its genes. They even said in right here, on CT! "If you’re a keen driver, you need to get the RCZ R. Trust me. Every aspect of the way it drives when you’re kicking its head in is leaps and bounds ahead of the TT, and I guarantee after a hoon in both, the Peugeot’s the one that’ll put the bigger smile on your face. Badge snobs be damned." Want to know more about that? It’s here : link text .
Ever drove a 205 1.9 GTI? A test driver once said "You’ll need racing skills to master this monster". 130hp only? Yup, but power never ment performance. You know what someone said : "If you’re not fast with 90hp, 900 won’t help you". That’s what is all about French sports car, power isn’t necessary if you have the right chassis.
That is all I can say for now, without making an extra-long article that would be too consistent to be readable. So if you’ve reached this point, thank you for the time you spent reading this and I hope that you’re more likely to not spread the hate, for our Frenchies and for all cars in general, because after all, it’s just a matter of opinion.
Little bonus : I want to clarify something that seems to be a good starting point of hate about French cars : the Volvo vs Modus Crash test. Yes, old Volvo’s are known for being Tanks. No, the engine hasn’t been removed for the crash test, it’s just that it is not in a transversal position but in a longitudinal position, so when the two car went on a 3/4 front collision, the engine was moved on left-side of the engine bay. No, the Volvo isn’t safer than a Modus. Why? Because the Volvo was engineered during an era when Euro N-CAP wasn’t there to rule the safety of the cars. So yes it was a tank back then, but now it isn’t anymore. Sorry guys.
And for the video where you can see a red Volvo wagon hit some old cars on a scrapyard, you can clearly see that they are using things as ramps to avoid the high strength parts of the cars that are normally collided during a crash, this resulting on a heavier car crashing with it’s own strengthened body parts on cars-parts where it’s not supposed to crash. So it may appear that the Volvo is a true tank, but it’s just tricks and lies. Sorry again guys…
Internet traditions must be respected, Sorry for the long post so here is a potato-car :
Comments
Merci! Peut-etre qu’il y aura moins de hate sur les voitures françaises a l’avenir, j’espère que ça va servir a quelque chose.
Thanks! Maybe later there will be less hate on French cars, I hope this will help now.
Ça serait génial si ça pouvait changer, au moins un peu, ce que l’on voit habituellement !
Here’s my baby! Coilovers comming this week! So followup pic will come if there is intrest for it! 😁
Nice babe you have there. I prefere the Break version personally, I prefere wagons in general actually Haha !
As a French I agree with you, even if we have too many diesel here ;)
Beaucoup putain de trop ouais ! Haha. J’ai un diesel mais Just parce que j’ai trouvé que ca comme motorisation pour le modèle que je voulais :(
I own a Peugeot 206 gti maaaad! Car ..
Not many problems ,
One of my coworkers owns one, it is fun as hell !
There have been plenty of awesome French cars, but unfortunately they all seem to be overshadowed by the dreary and dented people carriers and Taxis that clog up our roads and fuse that unbreakable mental association that French cars are dull. At the end of the day, dullness is the worst crime a car can commit in any petrol-heads eyes, and with the exception of the RCZ, french manufacturers seem determined to not build or sell anything exciting of late. Sure they have awesome motorsporting success, but they don’t seem to trickle down into the road going models (the Sebastian Loeb edition of the C4 didn’t even have a tuned engine or chassis for goodness sake!). The problem (in the UK at least) is that the likes of Ford and Vauxhall have continuously offered RS and VXR versions of their cheap cars which makes them the go-to guys for hot hatches in most people books (plus BMW are still plugging the whole cheap RWD is best angle). The french manufacturers have left their sports car catalogue virtually empty for so long that most people have now forgotten them.
Amen.
Et Alexandre Darracq ?!
One thing: renaults aren’t reliable. They won’t "fail to fail you". They WILL fail you. While old citroens and peugeots are reliable, you just can’t say that about renaults. They keep breaking down, their build quality is utter crap and they do nothing better than other cars, besides being cheap (I wonder why). Bottom line, I sure would like to own a little 205 to trash around, but hell no on the renaults. I’ve worked on too many of those, and I’ve seen too many of them parked on the side of the road waiting for a tow truck to want one.Also, a friend of mine nearly lost both his legs because of an "old" renault (the same age as my japanese car)
Nowadays Renaults are good. Old ones are known for being bad and unreliable, even here in France, but that isn’t the case anymore :)
Very good post. I have a saxo vts 1.6 16v and still kicks ass! Its my 3rd Citroën and i love it!
You do indeed offer some valid points, and there are a few French cars that I like. And as for reliability, my dad used to have a 2000 Peugeot 306 HDi. We got rid of it… nearly ten years ago, and it had done more than 100,000 miles when we sold it. I still occasionally see it driving around today, and I am almost convinced that thing will outlast me. It has to have done at least 200,000 miles by now, probably heading towards 250k if not 300k.
These stories are common, just untold. Thanks for your comment :)
Good article, I lived in France for a couple of years when I was younger so I can relate
Thanks mate :)