Georges Richard

Originally copying Benz cars of the era, Richard bought a licence, in 1900, from the Belgian Vivinus to build voiturettes.

The business flourished and the brothers created a company which they called "Société des Cycles Georges Richard".

[2] The brothers' belief in the quality of their bicycles enabled them to include a life-time guarantee against manufacturing defects when selling the machines.

The first formally presented "motor car" was a two-seater propelled by a single cylinder 708cc power unit producing a claimed maximum output of 3.5 hp.

This "voiturette" was presented at the first national bicycle show to admit motorised vehicles, and would be constructed between 1896 and 1902, being sold under the name "Pony".

In 1905, following a meeting with the polymath entrepreneur Baron Henri de Rothschild, Georges Richard obtained sufficient funding to establish the Société anonyme des automobiles UNIC, and to construct a first factory[3] for the new enterprise in the north-Paris suburb of Puteaux, in order to manufacture "unique" motor vehicles tailored to various sets of customer requirements.