Qualla: Cléon https://qualla.com/cleon en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:34:10 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Cléon https://qualla.com/cleon Cléon: Introduction https://qualla.com/cleon/ Say "Cléon" to a vintage-car collector and they won't picture a town at all. They'll think of an engine. This small commune in Normandy, tucked into a tight loop of the river Seine some eleven miles south of Rouen, lent its name to one of the most prolific motors France ever built — so completely that the place became inseparable from the machine. Cléon is a town the size of a name, and the name traveled the world under millions of hoods.

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/0/b/8/cleon-wp/u0b8-cl-on-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Cléon: A Town Inside a River Bend https://qualla.com/cleon/ Geography drew the shape of Cléon long before Renault did. The town sits inside a meander of the Seine, one of those dramatic loops the river carves through the chalk country of Seine-Maritime as it winds toward the sea. Roads D7 and D144 meet here, threading a community that for...

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/0/b/8/cleon-wp/u0b8-cl-on-a-town-inside-a-river-bend.mp3 0:06 2 full Cléon: The Factory That Renamed an Engine https://qualla.com/cleon/ In 1958, Renault came to the riverbend. The factory it built within Cléon's territory — sprawling across 135 hectares — became the company's principal plant for engines and gearboxes, and it transformed the town's identity overnight. The most famous product arrived in 1962: a fou...

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/0/b/8/cleon-wp/u0b8-cl-on-the-factory-that-renamed-an-engine.mp3 0:06 3 full Cléon: Older Than the Assembly Line https://qualla.com/cleon/ Strip away the industry and an older Cléon remains. The church of Saint-Martin dates to the sixteenth century, its stone walls predating the combustion engine by some four hundred years. A seventeenth-century manor house stands as another survivor from the days when this was a pl...

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/0/b/8/cleon-wp/u0b8-cl-on-older-than-the-assembly-line.mp3 0:06 4 full Cléon: Still Building, Still Becoming https://qualla.com/cleon/ Cléon never stopped being a factory town, but the factory keeps reinventing itself. Over its lifetime the plant has produced staggering numbers of engines and gearboxes, and in recent years it has pivoted toward a new century — becoming a center for building the electric motors t...

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/0/b/8/cleon-wp/u0b8-cl-on-still-building-still-becoming.mp3 0:06 5 full