The French have built some pretty wild road cars over the years, so you’d expect the nation’s concept cars to be just as bonkers? You’d be right, there have been some absolute belters, so here’s a rundown of the best French concept cars of all time.
The 11 best French concept cars
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Arzens L'Oeuf Electrique – 1942
The oldest car on our list is one you may recognise from our list of cars that are shaped like Easter eggs. Unveiled by French industrial designer Paul Arzens in 1942, the L’Oeuf Electrique was, as you might have guessed, a tiny electric city car. Why electric? Because fuel was rationed, so Arzens looked to a small electric motor for power and, once the car was up and running, drove it around Nazi-occupied Paris. Because conventional car building materials were in such short supply most of the L’Oeuf’s parts were recycled, with beach chairs rather than normal car seats and a huge plexiglass windscreen. There’s only one in the world and it currently resides in the Cite de l’Automobile museum in Mulhouse, France.
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Renault Project 900 – 1959
Which way is it driving? Who knows. This is the Renault Project 900 and, as you can see, it’s back to front. Built as a concept taxi, with four doors and seating for six, the engine was where it should be in terms of how the car looked i.e. under the bonnet. But the bonnet was actually at the back, as you can probably tell from the red light lenses, making the Project 900 rear-engined. At the back, or rather the front, was a bubble-like compartment slung out ahead of the front axle where the driver and one passenger sat. If you had luggage, you had to leave it at home or keep it on your lap, but who cares? Just imagine the looks of bemusement from other road users as you cruised down the French autoroute in a car that was facing the wrong way.
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Citroen Karin – 1980
We’ve covered the Citroen Karin before in our list of the best 1980s concept cars, but it’s so cool we had to include it here, too. It was built for the 1980 Paris Motor Show when Citroen realised it didn’t have anything to display. No, really, that is actually what happened, and so Citroen’s chief designer, a man by the name of Trevor Fiore, was told to do whatever he wanted from a blank piece of a paper. The result was a beige three-seater that looked like a squashed pyramid-esque greenhouse, with the driver sat in the centre. It’s a weird, weird car, but mighty cool.
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Renault Espace F1 – 1994
We sincerely hope that whoever came up with the idea for the Renault Espace F1 is living a life of luxury somewhere off the back of a huge bonus for creating one of the coolest cars of all time. Because that’s what this is. Shown at the 1994 Paris Motor Show, the Espace F1 was a one-off, fully-functioning lunatic, the result of a joint project between Renault, Matra and Williams. The rear axle, gearbox and 3.5-litre naturally-aspirated V10 engine from the 1992 Williams FW14 were connected up to a bespoke front axle, onto which a wide, bewinged carbon body was draped. As if the noise wasn’t insane enough on the outside, on the inside there was seating for four in some delightful carbon-fibre bucket seats, and between the two most rear seats sat the exposed intake trumpets. The engine revved to 13,800rpm and had 800PS (588kW), enough to send the Espace F1 to 192mph. One hundred and ninety-two miles per hour. It even made the trip to Goodwood in 2002, the video of which is insane. If only Renault would do something similar today.
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Citroën Xanae – 1994
Meanwhile, over in Citroën land, a team of designers were working on something a little slower… The Citroën Xanae was an MPV, which in itself isn’t very interesting. But its funky looks combined with the fact it had a single door on one side, scissor doors on the other, swivelling front seats and a wildly-styled three-spoke steering wheel, earn the Xanae a spot on the list. Also unveiled at the 1994 Paris Motor Show, it was in effect the forerunner to the Xsara Picasso that launched in 1999, and unlike so many other concepts on display at the show it was in full running order. Entering the age of the MPV it was a real show-stopper, particularly as the side with scissor doors had no B-pillar. To be quite honest it could have made this list for the swivel seats alone, because not only did they rotate but they were covered in the most 1990s fabric you could possibly imagine.
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Citroën Coupe de Plage – 1996
We’d love to say the Citroën Coupe de Plage makes our list because of some clever stylistic reason, or because the technology underneath was in some way pioneering. The simple truth is it’s a car with two deck chairs built into the back, and that’s all there is too it. It’s essentially a Citroën Berlingo ‘ute’, and if you know your French you’ll know ‘plage’ means ‘beach’. As such, the front is very much a Berlingo, the rear has been utterly transformed to make way for a scuba tank rack, surfboard carrier, deck chair lounge space and picnic bench. Styled by Bertone, it was one of three Berlingo-based concepts unveiled by the company, the others known as the Berlingo Bulle (a big white bubble of a car) and the Berlingo Grand Large (the father of the Berlingo Multispace). More concept cars should have deck chairs.
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Peugeot 20Cup – 2006
Imagine if Peugeot built a rival to the Morgan Super 3, because that’s not too far away from what this is. The Peugeot 20Cup had a carbon-fibre front end that previewed the upcoming 207’s face and a 1.6-litre turbocharged BMW motor, the same as would be in the 207 GTI and Mini Cooper S, stuffed under the bonnet. There were no doors, meaning you had to lower yourself into the split cockpit with seating for two, as you would a Formula car, replacing the steering wheel once you were settled in. With 172PS (127kW) and 240Nm (178lb ft) of torque going through the front wheels and just 500kg to lug around the 20Cup was quick, capable of 0-62mph in less than five seconds. But with 80 per cent of the car’s weight over the front axle it needed to be driven with care. This, funnily enough, is why there were two examples of the 20Cup, one black and one white, but the latter was written off in a media test drive almost immediately… It’s a silly car with no real purpose, but there’s nothing wrong with that at all.
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Citroën Survolt – 2010
Considering how focussed Citroën is on comfort today, back in 2010 the company did things very differently. Not only did it have a team in the WRC but it built concept cars like this, electric racers with big wings and scissor doors. The Survolt had two 140kg, 31kW Lithium-ion batteries and two electric motors for a total of 304PS (224kW), a top speed of 162mph and a 0-62mph time of less than five seconds. The range, meanwhile, was 124 miles, thanks in part to lightweight carbon bodywork. Less lightweight was the tubular chassis which we’d be willing to bet was made of steel, but with a flat floor, big diffuser and massive rear wing, we’re not too bothered that it wasn’t the most high-tech creation around. We just love that it looked cool and was an electric racer with a refreshingly low power output.
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DS X E-Tense – 2018
The DS X E-Tense was the company’s vision of a car in 2035, and could, therefore, have been a boring electric blob with some jazzy paint. Instead, DS made a car with two personalities. On one side you’ve got a gullwing door, a glass canopy, no steering wheel and a leather-clad cabin with space for two, essentially an autonomous runaround. On the other you’ve got a single seat, a wheel, two pedals and… no roof. A single-seater sportscar, then. Power ranged from 544PS (400kW) in a road setting to 1,400PS (1,000kW) in race mode, with a powertrain developed by the DS Formula E team. A funky, French Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, then.
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Peugeot e-Legend – 2018
The motoring world lost its collective mind when the Peugeot e-Legend was unveiled. It broke cover ahead of the 2018 Paris Motor Show, and paid tribute to the 504 Coupe that was shown in Geneva in 1959, a Pininfarina-styled beauty that’s just as stunning today as it was then. But it harked back while looking forward, with an electric powertrain, motor-powered pillarless doors, a stunning digital dashboard, a heavily stylised square, small Peugeot steering wheel, and the most vivid turquoise felt-covered seats we have ever seen. It has a real muscular look to it, too, and those delightfully thin A-pillars would in no way be legal today but, quite frankly, that doesn’t matter. This could be the most desirable Peugeot concept car the company has ever created.
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Renault 5 – 2021
Another retro-styled concept and one we were lucky enough to see for real at the 2022 Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard, this is an all-electric, five-door hatchback we’re very much onboard with. Unveiled in January 2021, the new Renault 5 EV is a hat-tip to the original, and even with a number of futuristic styling touches it is instantly recognisable as a follow-up to the 1970s petrol-powered hatchback. Unlike the aforementioned Peugeot, however, the 5 will go on sale, with plans for production in 2025, although whether or not it will still carry a Renault badge or that of Alpine remains to be seen… Whatever badge it has, if it looks anything like this we’ll be banging on Renault’s factory doors to have a go as soon as humanly possible.
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