10 Cars That Could Only Have Come From France

French cars come in for plenty of criticism these days, but anyone who knows their back-catalogue can forgive the odd unreliable Renault or dull Peugeot.

The country has a better track record for producing brilliant vehicles than just about anywhere else. In today's world of endless sopping praise for dull VW Golfs and in the midst of a Korean car invasion, France still seems like the slightly quirky outsider, and it's still capable of springing the odd surprise.

For maximum surprise, we've compiled a list of ten cars that could only have come from France. No other country could have produced them, and most wouldn't have even thought of them - and that's why we still have a soft spot for French metal...

1. Citroen 2CV

The 2CV's brief has been repeated thousands of times before, but it's worth doing so again here: The 2CV was to be an "umbrella on wheels", additionally requiring the car to ride smoothly enough to transport a basket of eggs undamaged across a ploughed field. Elsewhere in the world this would be laughed off as ludicrous, but in 1930s France when the car was in development, the nation's crumbling roads and agricultural industry made such a brief very sensible indeed.

In fact, while the 2CV looks loopy it was just about perfect for the job it was designed for - like other enduring icons such as the Beetle and Mini. It was cheap in every respect, incredibly simple, reliable enough to run flat out for days on end (as anyone who has ever visited France will attest) and as per the brief, had an absolutely brilliant ride. As the lady in the picture above is no doubt discovering.

2. Renault 4

The 4's slightly gawky looks hide a highly significant vehicle. For one, it's possibly the closest French equivalent to the Volkswagen Beetle, in that it's the highest-selling French vehicle ever made - with over 8 million hitting the roads. Secondly, like the Citroen 2CV, it mobilised most of France in the decades after the war. You still see wizened old French farmers driving them at ballistic velocities through rural France in a way that would quickly kill a modern car.

But it's the design's bloody-mindedness that makes it a true French vehicle. It eschews any sense of style absolutely - it is just a vehicle to contain people and move them from one place to another. And it's engineering-led too. It uses individual torsion bars on the rear axle. Since they wouldn't be independent if they were connected in the same place, the bar on the right is located behind its left-hand counterpart. Yes, the 4 has a wheelbase longer on the right than on the left...

3. Citroen DS

The origin of Citroen's magic carpet ride thanks to hydropneumatic suspention, the DS (ds-hire.com Eilertfrost)

The French have always appreciated good design, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the DS. To understand its full significance you have to remember what other cars were like in the mid 50s, when it emerged - all upright boxes with running boards and separate wings, evolutions of vehicles from the 30s. 20 years ahead it might have been, but it looked every one of the 40 years ahead it was when the DS eventually disappeared in the 70s.

That's before you even got to the car's innards, which spoke of the same devotion to thought that's seen France churn out so many famous philosophers. Self-levelling hydraulic suspension, hydraulic gear selection, directional headlights, power-assisted disc brakes... the list goes on. The average British car had barely lost its trafficators (look 'em up) by the 50s.

4. Peugeot Onyx

Thoughtful beauty. That's probably the best way of descrbing the Onyx, launched last year and last seen whooshing up the Goodwood hill. Where Italian cars express beauty in bright red paint and voluptuous curves, the French do it with understatement. On the Onyx, they do it with subdued matte black paintwork paired with naturally aging copper panels.

While a concept car alone (you can't buy one, and even if you could some pikey would probably wrench the copper panels off and sell them on the black market), the Onxy's use of materials, particularly the recycled newspaper-based innards, could find their way onto future production cars. If they're as beautiful as the Onyx, we wouldn't even mind if Peugeot made its next car from the skins of baby seals.

5. Matra Murena

Matra Murena (via Saab92x.com)

Sports cars can be a bit impratical, particularly if you have more than one friend. Just where do you put them if you only have two seats? In a Matra Murena probably, since its three seats finally made carrying an extra friend - or accommodating a Ménage à trois (it is French, after all) - possible.

With only 1.6 and 2.2 engine options it isn't the quickest sports car ever, but it's a stylish little thing and the sofa-like interior is as wonderful as you'd expect from something whose gestation took place in the late 70s. And let's face it, it's cheaper than the McLaren F1 - that other well-known three-seater sports car...

6. Renault Clio V6

Ah, some good old-fashioned French craziness. If you had a few too many Clio shells and Laguna V6 engines knocking about, you'd probably just make a few more Clio engines and Laguna bodies to pair them with.

Not Renault. Instead, it went to the trouble of wedging the 3.0-litre units into a space usually occupied by the rear passengers. This does raise some packaging issues, so they made it a foot wider for good measure. And then gave it a supertanker's turning circle making the inevitable high-speed spin impossible to catch. Bonkers and utterly brilliant.

7. Alpine A310

Alpine's own A110 is more iconic and enjoyed more rally success, but we're not sure even that car can match the sort of aching, effortless cool of the 70s A310. A Porsche 911 of the same period - its natural rear-engined rival - looks archaic next to the wedgy Alpine with its huge perspex headlight covers.

Never before has the term "je ne sais quoi" been more appropriate - it's almost impossible to put your finger on exactly what makes the A310 as suave as it seems. We say don't bother trying - just stare at it instead. The woman in the tinfoil costume has the right idea.

8. Citroen DS5

The DS5 is the more family friendly method of driving in style

What's the most French car on sale today? Perhaps not surprisingly, it's one from the old master of making unusual, compelling vehicles: Citroen. We were always intrigued to see what they did with the DS name when they announced they'd bring it back, and while the DS3 is nice enough and the DS4 a little odd, it's the DS5 that best evokes memories of that classic DS of the 1950s.

There's even a little technology exploration, albeit one with mixed success. The DS5's optional diesel hybrid powertrain is a little clunky (as is the ride quality), but at least they're trying. And the DS5 is a stunning place to sit, with quality far beyond the Citroen norm and eye-catching details that the Germans couldn't replicate if they tried for another 50 years. It's expensive and a bit silly, but it's definitely a proper Citroen.

9. Peugeot 106 Rallye

Peugeot 106 Rallye (via ranwhenparked.net)

That the French make good hot hatchbacks is no surprise. They've had some of the best and while the new Renaultsport Clio 200 is getting mixed reviews, we'd be very surprised if Renault doesn't tweak it to perfection like they've done with other past RS models.

But really, any manufacturer could make something like the Clio RS. The same couldn't be said for the 106 Rallye, or other similarly flyweight hot hatches of the era. Any other car from any other country would have suffered mission creep, adding in the odd gadget here and there or giving it stuff it didn't need. Not Peugeot - the S1 Rallye weighed about the same as an empty packet of Gitanes and was all the better for it. It's about as pure as hot hatches get - and about as pure as they'll ever be, too.

10. Renault Avantime

The world didn't need a two-door, four-seat pillarless MPV, but Renault made one anyway and we're quite glad they did. Love or hate the looks (and if you hate them, I'm afraid we can't be friends), its mere existence makes the world a better place.

It means that, at some point, a car company has made a car they wanted rather than one which would rake in the cash. Given Renault's recent decade of poor sales they might be regretting it now, but for a brief period in the early 2000s we got to see a major automaker putting out cars unrestrained by societal norms. The Avantime is to France as the finned cars of the 50s were to the U.S. - an unbridled exploration of design.