Pierre Dreyfus (18 November 1907, Paris — 25 December 1994, Paris) was a high French

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

who in 1955 became a wealthy businessman. Between 1947 and 1955, he occupied senior administrative positions in the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, and in 1951 he became 'directeur de cabinet' at the ministry. Between 1948 and 1955, Dreyfus combined his civil service duties with the vice-presidency of the newly nationalised

Renault Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English; legally Renault S.A.) is a French multinational automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company produces a range of cars and vans, and in the past has manufactured ...

auto business. On 11 February 1955 Pierre Lefaucheux died in a road accident and Dreyfus was appointed

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

. He retained the position until his retirement from the company in 1975. Like Lefaucheux, Dreyfus secured his reputation in the top job at Renault by overseeing the launch and production of a model developed under his predecessor: in this case the commercial success was that of the

Renault Dauphine The Renault Dauphine () is a rear-engined economy car manufactured by Renault in a single body style – a three-box, 4-door sedan – as the successor to the Renault 4CV; more than two million were manufactured during its 1956–1967 ...

. By the end of 1958, with Dreyfus less than three years into his time at the top, a million

Renault 4CV The Renault 4CV (french: quatre chevaux, as if spelled ''quat'chevaux'') is a rear-engined, rear-wheel-drive, 4-door economy supermini manufactured and marketed by the French manufacturer Renault from August 1947 through July 1961. It was the fi ...

s and half a million Dauphines had been sold. The following year, 1959, Renault ranked as the world's sixth largest auto-maker. The collapse of North American demand for the Dauphine triggered a crisis for the company that was well-publicised, especially in the United States, with unsold Dauphines on North American docksides adding to the half million unsold Detroit built products clogging the US auto-market by the end of 1960: for Renault salvation arrived just in time in the form of the Renault 4, developed under Dreyfus and built at the rate of 1,000 cars a day by the end of 1962. During Dreyfus's twenty years in charge, Renault went on to consolidate its position as France's top selling car maker, gaining particular recognition in the 1960s for popularizing

front wheel drive Front-wheel drive (FWD) is a form of engine and transmission layout used in motor vehicles, where the engine drives the front wheels only. Most modern front-wheel drive vehicles feature a transverse engine, rather than the conventional longitu ...

hatchback A hatchback is a car body configuration with a rear door that swings upward to provide access to a cargo area. Hatchbacks may feature fold-down second row seating, where the interior can be reconfigured to prioritize passenger or cargo volume. ...

sedans across Europe, most notably the 4, 5 and 16 models. During the early years of the Mitterrand presidency, Dreyfus became active on the political scene, serving briefly as Industry Minister between June 1981 and June 1982 under prime minister Pierre Mauroy. Pierre Dreyfus was not related either to

Alfred Dreyfus Alfred Dreyfus ( , also , ; 9 October 1859 – 12 July 1935) was a French artillery officer of Jewish ancestry whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most polarizing political dramas in modern French history. ...

, famous because of the '

Dreyfus Affair The Dreyfus affair (french: affaire Dreyfus, ) was a political scandal that divided the French Third Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. "L'Affaire", as it is known in French, has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francop ...

' effectively publicised by

Émile Zola Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, also , ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of ...

, nor to the race-driver Pierre Louis-Dreyfus.

References

External links

* https://www.humanite.fr/journal/1994-12-27/1994-12-27-714952 * http://www.autonews.com/files/euroauto/inductees/2006dreyfus.htm (English) * http://www.industrie.gouv.fr/biblioth/docu/rapports/chefs.html Renault people 20th-century French businesspeople French civil servants 1907 births 1994 deaths Burials at Batignolles Cemetery {{automobile-bio-stub