Needing a more convenient base than the farm, the brothers established their factory in nearby
Le Crotoy, on the eastern side of the
Somme estuary about from Abbeville and with a broad, flat, firm, south facing beach ideal for flying. They set up a flying school there This activity flourished and by early 1913 a second school had been set up at
Port-Aviation (often called "Juvisy Airfield") in
Viry-Châtillon with a combined capacity of 100 to 250. Renault took a controlling 55% stake while René Caudron kept the remaining 45%. In August 1934,
Hélène Boucher, on board her
C 450, achieved the world record average speed for 100 kilometres, 1000 kilometres, and the world female speed record. According to
Popular Aviation, by November 1935 Caudron-Renault was producing the following models: the
C 272-3 Luciole (2-seat light biplane aircraft), the
C 282-8 Phalene VIII (4-seat light monoplane), the
C 360 (monoplane),
the C 366 Atalante (a monoplane based on an earlier model), the
C 440 (twin-engined low-wing cabin monoplane), the C 450 (1-seat racing monoplane), the C 460 (1-seat racing monoplane) and the
C 530 Rafale (high-performance, 2-seat light monoplane). By 1936, Renault was hit by the
Great Depression and, in 1938, it spun off Caudron-Renault into a separate, autonomous subsidiary in order to focus on its core automotive business.
Messerschmitt Bf 108s the Caudron's Simoun and Goéland ranges, the
Siebel Si-204, for the
Wehrmacht. It also repaired aircraft. In February 1942,
Willy Messerschmitt requested that Caudron produce the
Messerschmitt Me 164, a Si-104 rival, but that was sabotaged. The Issy-les-Moulineaux plant was almost completely destroyed by
RAF and
AAF bombings that took place in September 1943, leaving it permanently out of production. In 1944, the remaining Caudron-Renault operations were nationalised by the French government and became part of the Société Nationale de Construction aéronautique du Centre. ==Aircraft==