Le Blon

The area you are walking through takes its name from a pioneering era of French mechanical ingenuity. The Le Blon brothers operated a workshop at fifty-six rue du Vieux Pont de Sèvres, just steps from the avenue you are on now. Around eighteen ninety-eight, they began manufacturing a small, lightweight automobile called the Le Blon, which featured a four horsepower twin-cylinder engine. These early motorcars were so distinct that some were even exported to England and marketed under the name Lynx. The presence of such specialized workshops in this part of Boulogne-Billancourt helped set the stage for the massive industrial developments, including the arrival of the Renault factories, that would eventually define the identity of the entire district.