The Renault brothers founded their company in Billantcourt in 1899, the year in which they also presented their second automobile, the 3 ½ HP. The car, the prototype of which was presented one year earlier, is fueled by a water-cooled front De Dion single-cylinder engine with a capacity of less than half a liter. Enough, however, to make Louis and Marcel Renault win the Paris-Ostend race and to lay the foundation of what would become one of the main automotive industries in the world. In 1959, the Museum purchased the present model in Cannes from André Scoupe.
