Paul Arzens (1903–1990) was a French industrial designer of railway locomotives and motor cars. Arzens was born in Paris, at an address along the on the northern side of the city. As a young man he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and soon gained recognition as a talented artist able at this stage, unusually, to live reasonably well on the sales proceeds from his paintings. This gave him enough time to pursue other interests in the realms of engineering and design. As his life progressed he accumulated a large collection of his own paintings and gained a reputation for an acute reluctance to sell any.