Historiographical overview of the history of the French cars the late XIX century

The article is devoted to the systematization and analysis of historical research on the history of the French automobiles of the XIX century. Despite the plenty of publications on the history of the car during this period is poorly lit by modern authors. Many of them considered the history of the world automobile construction industry and were not able to describe this topic enough. The researchers of the period studied a fraction of the existing vehicles of that time. Modern information technologies with the help of the Internet and digital libraries allow getting access to books and journals dated the late XIX - early XX century. This gives an opportunity to complete the available knowledge, correct accumulated errors, and gather the collection and systematization of data - the foundation of any research. The authors excretes the group of sources. There is analyzed of that sources and revealed the research base.