Ah, the French car. You know, perhaps I should just back up and say, “Ah, the French.” There’s a reason our friends across the pond have a reputation for weirdness, whether it’s in their food, their art, their aversion to shaving (men and women alike), or their cars. The French are cool—way cooler than you and I, no matter where you or I might be from. If you don’t believe me, just ask a Frenchman; he’ll set you straight. Along with being cool comes a certain license to create, well, weird stuff and call it "artsy." They do it all of the time and try to pawn it off on the rest of the world like they’ve just invented the wheel or something. You know I’m right; you’ve tried to pretend to like Nicoise Salad, Vichyssoise, Ratatouille, Pernod, and the like. You’ve acted like you understood why Van Gogh cut his ear off for the sake of art, and you’ve even agreed at parties that Jean-Luc Godard is probably the greatest director ever (hey, it’s alright; we know it was a hot French chick you were agreeing with).

So, if you think that the French suddenly got normal, restrained, and refined when they started making cars, well, you'd be wrong. Their cars are just as strange and odd as the rest of their culture. It’s true; the French can’t but help to be weird—it’s in their genes. Now, I’m not saying the following 17 weird French cars are necessarily bad, although some of them certainly are. I’m just saying that these cars are uniquely French. Read on to see just exactly what I mean. You know what, have a good glass of wine while you do so—at least we can all agree that’s something the French do really well and aren’t weird about at all.

17 Renault Twizy

If it’s OK with all of you guys, I’d like to start off our journey through the vastness of French wackiness with a car that's utterly insane. That’s what we're all here for, after all, right? Leave it to the French to come up with a concept car that actually became a production car, even though there was literally no demand for such a vehicle. The Twizy is an electric car, which is environmentally laudable. But—yeah, there's always a “but” with French cars—it seats exactly one person. Its entire hood/windshield/door assembly rises up like the world’s weirdest Gullwing doors (or a Star Wars escape pod) and its safety standards are questionable. Speaking of those doors, they look more like an amusement park ride’s lap blockers than a car door. But hey, at least the Twizy has four wheels ‘cause it sure looks like it should only have three.

16 Matra Murena

Here we go with a classic French oddball version of a sports coupe. If you take one look at this thing, you know you're looking at French engineering in full-swing. Just take a gander at those lines. The French do this over and over—they build a sporty coupe, and then, they start messing with the hood. This time, some guy with a high forehead on the engineering team must've had the brilliant idea to make the hood a downward-facing slanted slab. Why? Well, who knows? I certainly don't. Perhaps they wanted to make sure the driver always felt like he was going faster than he really was because he was going downhill. But the weirdest part of the Murena has to be something I wish I had a better picture of. It’s a three-seater and, yup, you guessed it—all three seats sit in a row right up front. OK then.

15 Cugnot Fardier

If you wanted proof that the French are weirder than you, I, the Italians, the South Koreans, or anyone else you can think of when it comes to car engineering, then you needn't look further than Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot’s original steam-engine “car,” the Fardier. You see, this thing was invented in 1771! The French were already making insane powered vehicles over a hundred years before anyone else thought to invent a “horseless carriage.” I think the best part about this truly strange contraption is its name. Doesn’t “Fardier” sound a little bit like “farty air”? Well, it does to me anyway because I’m pretty sure that’s what the driver of this throwback/futuristic/lost-in-time machine was smelling while he drove it. Here’s what one modern reviewer had to say about the Fardier: “For its time, Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot's Fardier was totally bizarre. It was a big, ungainly three-wheeler. Propulsion was by a steam-fed piston-and-ratchet arrangement with the steam kettle hanging off the front. Handling balance was terrible, and reported reliability worse.” All I know is that this thing is bizarre for any time.

14 Helicron

I’m not lying to you when I say this was an actual production vehicle the French were trying to sell back in 1932, before they realized they had better start making tanks and worrying about the Germans. It really was a working car that people were buying—if that’s not weird, then nothing is. After all, when was the last time you said to yourself, “Gosh, I really wish I had the opportunity to buy a propeller car!” Yeah, that’s what I thought. It’s not that the thing doesn’t look cool but that it’s just so damn unusual. Also, just in case you didn’t notice, there are absolutely no safety mechanisms in place for that giant, exposed propeller. I know this car was built in the ‘30s, when safety was basically an afterthought, but c’mon, France! This thing is a killer! Can you imagine how many dogs, children, and farm animals ran in fear from this thing? Weird isn't always good.

13 Renault Avantime

This is one weird car. It’s almost like the designers over at Renault decided they could turn a sport utility into a coupe. Or maybe it was the other way around—I’m not really sure, and I don’t think they were either. Perhaps, some of the weirdness the Avantime exhibited was due to it actually being created by Renault’s lesser affiliate, Matra. Perhaps. Or perhaps it was just one more weird and twisted idea to come out of a French engineer’s head. In any case, the Avantime is nuts.

Look at those doors; they're so big that supposedly, one could hop into the back seat without even folding the front seats down.

My favorite guy in the world, Giles Chapman, who wrote the book The Worst Cars Ever Sold, said of this car: "It had a lot of teething problems and was pretty badly built, so you'd have to question the judgment of people that thought it was a good car."

12 Renault Megane

Oh my, oh my, oh my... what do we have here? The Megane was a highly successful family car that first found life in 1995 and quickly became a fan favorite. Renault has sold tons of these odd little cars. Actually, some of the earlier iterations of the Megane weren’t that odd. Then came 2002, and Renault leaped into a redesign with a passion that could best be described as “misdirected” (I don’t want to say batsh*t crazy in a family mag). Check out that rear windshield for just a second. Yup, it really is sitting at a 90° angle. When was the last time you saw something like that? Nobody had made straight up and down windscreens for decades until Renault decided, "Hey, why not?" That design decision led to the incredibly flat roof you see on the Megane and, I assume, the weird decision to grossly exaggerate the curve of the side windows.

11 Citroen C4 “Cactus”

Here’s another example of the oddness that the French try to foist upon the car-buying public. The C4 Cactus was another concept car that some freak greenlit into production. Even freakier, people bought it. First of all, this was marketed as a “family car,” but it has almost no leg room and no storage room. Don’t let appearances deceive you; this car might fit four people but not comfortably, and they better not bring along anything more than a toothbrush. Second, what's going on with that “squishy” look (as one reviewer called it)? The whole thing looks squashed down. Perhaps that’s why there’s no legroom, Citroen? Finally, who thought it would be a good idea to put giant waffle irons on for the side paneling? I mean, I know the French like their pastries, but that seems to be a little bit beyond “normal” to me.

10 Citroen 2CV “Sahara”

The Citroen 2CV Safari is the twisted lovechild of the original 2CV and Herbie the Love Bug—at least that’s what it looks like it should be. We’ll get into its parent vehicle later on, but suffice it to say this is one very weird car. You see, there’s a reason we're looking at the schematic of the car here.

This is supposed to be a four-wheel-drive vehicle, so of course, the French went and made sure it was by putting two engines in the car: one for the front wheels and one for the rear wheels.

Voila! There’s your four-wheel drive. Just in case that wasn’t an odd-enough creative decision, take a look at where the fuel tank is resting and where the fill pipe to said fuel tank ends up. Yikes! I don’t know about you, but I'd prefer that my fuel cap not stick out the driver’s side door. And wait a minute... weren’t the French known for being heavy smokers? Hmm, that seems safe. This thing isn’t just weird; it’s off-the-charts nuts…

9 Panhard CD

This model was originally designed by specialty carmaker Panhard to be a test car. The company wanted to see how its highly streamlined and lightweight (it was made of fiberglass) bodies did performance-wise. When I say "streamlined," remember, I’m talking about a car made in 1962. But it did so well at that year’s Le Mans rally that Panhard actually ended up producing about 100 of these puppies.

What’s weird about this car, in case you didn’t notice, is that its “streamlined” body actually makes it look like an artist’s rendering of a futuristic submarine.

Or maybe a space-age “hover-bubble.” It’s an odd look for sure. What’s even stranger than the plenty-odd look to this car, though, is that apparently, the name “Panhard” is pronounced with a silent “n,” a silent “h,” and a total drop off the “d.” Wait, what??? That doesn’t leave very much of a recognizable name now, does it?

8 Renault Clio V6

Sometimes, the French try to sell us weird cars that seem totally (well, mostly) normal on the surface. That is, until we dig a little bit deeper into the history of a particular model. The Clio V6 grew out of the ashes of the infamous Renault 5 Sport. That original car was engineered back in the early to mid-eighties as a rally vehicle, although there was a road model sold as well. It was a classically and outwardly weird French creation. After all, who else wanted to make a high-performance hatchback with a turbo rear drive? Yes, I said "rear drive." Nobody, that’s who. The 5 Sport vanished into the mists of time until this space-age widow-maker appeared in 2001, marking the triumphant return of the species. This time, the weirdness was even more refined even if we can’t see it. Well, we can see the side vents that look like the Starship Enterprise’s warp nacelles, but that’s about it. But under all of that gleam lies not only a rear-wheel-drive layout but also a mid-engine layout. So yeah, you get to sit on top of the engine in your “performance” hatchback. Fun, fun…

7 Citroen Ami 6

Here’s the deal with French automakers. Even when they try really, really hard to imitate trends of the time, they can’t help but go off the rails. A perfect case in point is the Citroen Ami 6, which was desperately trying to go for that classic boxy look so many wagons have tried to achieve. But the French can’t stick to the straight and narrow—their cars are too odd. The Ami 6 should feel boxy, but look at that weirdly sloped front windshield that doesn’t relate at all to the upright, angular (and yet vaguely curved) rear windshield.

It’s almost like Citroen slapped two different designs together—one for the front of the car and one for the rear.

Throw in the very strange grille, lights, and mirror motif, and you’ve got one hell of a weird-looking car. Oh yeah, the side panels that make it look sort of like a rowboat aren’t exactly the norm either.

6 Peugeot 1007

Here’s an idea for the brilliant minds in Peugeot design: make a car that behaves like a normal car! This particular model was sold by Peugeot for over five years (granted, they only sold about 120,000 total vehicles) until people realized that, in the words of one critic: “They cost about 30% more and weighed about 700 lbs more than similarly engined contemporaries, which were better looking, more enjoyable to drive, and offered more interior space.” I guess that explains it pretty well, then, doesn’t it? Oh yeah, you probably want to know why this car cost so much, weighed so much, and was so odd. Well, here’s a news flash: sliding doors on two-seaters aren’t something anyone should ever have come up with. This thing isn’t a minivan; it’s a subcompact, and it should never have had such a grossly overweight and overly complex door. Supposedly, Peugeot lost about $20K per 1,007 sold—there’s a surprise.

5 Renault 9

Here’s the deal with the Renault 9. The French make lots and lots of weird cars. In fact, it often seems that the French are constitutionally incapable of making a car that doesn’t have some element of strangeness in it somewhere. So, what the heck happened here? The Renault 9 is so uninspired and so utterly and completely boring that one would assume it was made by an East German or a North Korean. It just doesn’t fit in with the wackiness we usually associate with French automobiles. I mean, just look at it. The word “banal” comes to mind. It’s so un-French it might be the strangest car we've seen on this list. Perhaps, that’s why it actually won European Car of the Year in 1982—nobody could actually believe it was French. "It didn't really have any innovations of any kind and was totally and utterly mundane." That’s what Giles Chapman said about it. Even he had to admit there was really no French zest or energy to the design, and that’s the weirdest part of all when it comes to this car.

4 Citroen 2CV

Now, don’t get me wrong—Citroen has made some fantastic cars over the course of the manufacturer’s long and storied career. And the company has also made even weirder cars than the 2CV. In fact, you just might see some of them on this list if you’re lucky. But the 2CV is still pretty strange. First of all, the car was initially developed to “push” farmers, laborers, and other members of the French proletariat away from their horse-drawn vehicles and into the modern age. Perhaps, that’s why this thing is so damn slow—they didn’t want to scare people away with their newfangled machines. Second, it just has such odd lines. Since the French love skiing so much, is it possible Citroen tried to make that hood look like a ski jump hill??? And what’s with all the unnecessary grillework? Finally, check out those doors. Talk about flimsy. They look like you could fold them up like a piece of foil and stick them in your back pocket. Tres strange.

3 Michelin PLR

And here we have a French tire maker’s entry into the wild and wacky world of French cars. And you thought Michelin only rated restaurants… Here’s the deal—Michelin needed a test vehicle to see how their truck tires were holding up. Sounds pretty smart, right? But instead of just slapping their tires on your average four-wheeled vehicle, Michelin went ahead and built the PLR, a monstrous 10-wheeled “caterpillar” of a car powered by two (yes, two) Chevy V8s. Um, Michelin... don’t you think that you just veered ever so slightly into the world of overkill? So what happened was the rear engine powered the three rear axles, and the other engine powered the “test” axle up front. Even weirder than that, though, was the fact that this beast could break 100 mph easily. I really, really hope nobody ever had to see this thing bearing down on them in their rearview mirror. Why, Michelin, oh why?

2 Renault Fuego

I found out about this automobile, which actually sold in the US for a decade through a little forum called “The Truth About Cars.” Well, here’s the truth about the Fuego. It has the perfectly weird and angular lines you would expect from a sporty French coupe. Have they ever learned how to soften the curves on their sports cars with just a little oddity thrown in? That would be the incredibly long hood footprint. This car isn't a big car, not even close. But that hood sure makes it seem like it is. Why anyone would want to do that to a performance car is beyond me. What’s even stranger about the Fuego is its name, though. We all know "fuego" is the Spanish word for “fire,” except for, apparently, the French, who don’t seem to find it odd to name a car after the one thing you never want to happen to your car.

1 Citroen DS

Well, sometimes, weird is good. Maybe we shouldn’t actually tell the French that, as they definitely seem to think that too much weird is just enough, but even they stumble across some absolute winners in the weird department sometimes. Enter the Citroen DS, circa 1955, a car that revolutionized the whole idea of the “executive sedan.” It was so far ahead of its time, it’s not even funny. Every sedan after it that ever tried for good lines and aesthetic glory owes its existence to this car. In fact, this car was so awesome on the technology front (it was the first production car ever to have disc brakes), people tend to forget how weirdly, uniquely beautiful it is. As Dan Neil wrote in the Wall Street Journal a few years back, the DS was “an atom bomb of style from a time when atom bombs were kind of cool.” I couldn’t agree more. The DS is so strangely appealing that many classic car collectors consider it the greatest car of all time. So, bravo, France—at least one of your weird and bizarre car designs hit the jackpot.

Sources: thetruthaboutcars.com, confused.com, drive.com