Not every MarneTaxi was a Renault

by Fons Alkemade: The other day I acquired a nice copy of the 1911 catalogue of the Société Anonyme des Automobiles “Unic”. Unic cars were well-known in the 1910s and 1920s and the catalogue shows a surprisingly large range of cars, from the cheapest model G2 with twin cylinder engine to the expensive model F1 with six cylinder engine. Besides, Unic was offering several commercial vehicles at the time: ambulances, vans, trucks, taxis. The Unic fiacres were already well-known by 1911, not only in France. My 1911 catalogue shows three cab models and to my surprise one of these does not have the usual Unic radiator (which is shown on the front cover of the catalogue) but resembles very much that other well-known French cab of the 1910s: the Renault AG1, the car which in 1914 would become known as the Taxi of the Marne.

In 1914 Paris counted already around 10 000 taxis and on the 6th of september 1914 a significant part of them were ordered by general Gallieni to transport soldiers to the front near the river Ourcq, close to the Marne , about 50 kilometers north-east of the capital. One of the surviving Renault cabs has been given a prominent place in the Army Museum in Paris.

I wonder why the G1 fiacre was offered by Unic in the same configuration as the Renault AG1. Was it because the Compagnie Française des Automobiles de Place, owner of the largest fleet of cabs in Paris, had decided that all their cars should have the same appearance? Maybe the answer can be found in the archives of the G7 company, as the Compagnie is known today (all Parisian cabs had G7 on their licence plate for some time).