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Renault released its rear-engined, water-cooled Dauphine in 1956 and brought it to the US the following year. By 1959, when the "Le Car Hot" ad campaign began, they were marketing the 89.4" wheelbase, 845cc 4-door as an alternative to VW's Beetle (94 inches, 1,200 cc, 2 doors). And for a brief moment, the promise of the New French Revolution ad campaign seemed to be coming true. While nearly 120,000 new VW vehicles were registered in the US that year, Renault sold around 102,000 Dauphines. But that was the stylishly rounded little car's best year here. It turned out that the Dauphine was not well-adapted to life on the Interstate, and that Renault dealers were not as ready to provide parts and service as VW dealers, whose cars seemed to need less of both.
By 1962, when Renault produced the R8 with a 956cc inline four and radiator still at the rear, the lines had become more rectilinear to provide more interior and trunk space on the same wheelbase as the Dauphine, and its 4-wheel disc brakes were new to this class of sedan. By 1964, they'd released a Gordini version named after their engineer, ex-race car maker Amédée Gordini*, with engines ranging from 1.1 to 1.3 liters, and producing up to 95 hp, twice that of the original R8. Rally success gave the Gordini a certain cachet, and this California example survives in fine condition.
Jean Rédelé's independent Alpine firm first produced his fiberglass-bodied A110 berlinette, based on the R8 chassis with a variety of engine sizes, starting in 1963. The little 2-seater had a long and illustrious rally career, winning the World Rally Championship in 1973. The author captured the example below after the Tour de France Auto in 1974. The car was never imported into the US, however...
The A110 became enough of a collector's trophy, though, that when Renault decided to produce a mid-engined GT car in 2016, then named it after the rear-engined A110 from the Sixties and Seventies. The new car is in the foreground below.
Other detours and adventures occupied the years between 1977, when the original A110 finally ended production, and 2016. In 1971 Alpine released the A310, still rear-engined but with the radiator in front, with styling by Trevor Fiore and six covered headlights marching across the sleek fiberglass nose, a clear reference to Alpine Renauilt's success in international rallying. The A310 below was also photographed after the '74 Tour de France.
While rear-engined Renaults were beginning to have rally success, Renault engineers were launching production cars with front-wheel drive. First was the R4, a competitor for Citroen's 2CV, in 1962. By '65, though, they'd released the R16, a serious effort to redefine the mainstream sedan. It featured a longitudinally-mounted aluminum inline 4 (from 1,470 to 1,647 cc) driving the front wheels, a hatchback configuration with folding rear seats, those 4 disc brakes, and a practical orientation not unlike the pitch Volvo used to attract US customers. An unusual feature was torsion bar rear suspension design with non-aligned rear axles, which resulted in different wheelbases on each side of the car (104.3" right, 107.1" left). The R16 was less successful in the US than in Canada, where it was popular enough to justify a Quebec assembly plant.
Renault's R5 was introduced in 1972 with similar front-drive and rear suspension, and by '75 was competing with the VW Rabbit / Golf and Honda Civic for US customers. It was marketed in the US as Le Car, harking back to that late Fifties advertising campaign.
The R5 / Le Car dramatized the divergent views of the engineers who saw front-wheel drive as a universal format, and those who wanted to promote Renault and Alpine Renault as rally winners. In 1980, the rally crew got a mid-engined Turbo based on the R5 as a rally weapon. The mid-mounted, turbocharged inline 4 of 1.4 or 1.5 liters sent power to the rear wheels through a 5-speed gearbox, and took the place of the rear seat in a body adapted from the front-drive R5.
Bodywork is credited to Marc Deschamps and Marcello Gandini of Bertone, along with the futuristic interior. Sales greatly exceeded what was required for a "homologation special" over 5 years of production, with nearly five thousand cars sold. A few "grey market" cars made it to the US...
Likewise, some V6 versions of Alpine's A310 came to the US through specialists willing and able to certify the cars. These all had flared wheel wells and rally spoiler kits to go with the 2.7 liter PRV engine and 5-speed gearbox that might have made the lighweight GT an interesting alternative to Porsche's 911, had Renault taken an interest in selling it here. The example below is from 1984, when production ended...
By then, however, Renault had taken a different route into the US market, focused on front-drive compact versions of the Renault 9 and 11, redesigned for the US market in a $90 million program with American Motors that gave Renault a 46% share in AMC. The resulting Alliance sedans and convertibles, and Encore hatchbacks, were sold in the 1983-'87 model years, but discontinued when Chrysler bought out Renault's share in AMC. Still, the cars represented Renault's biggest sales success in the US market, with over 623,000 specimens sold. American Motors was renamed Jeep-Eagle and merged into Chrysler in 1990...
From the '89 to '92 model years, AMC built and sold the Eagle Premier in the US. A mid-size car by US standards, it was related to the Giugiaro-designed front-drive senior Renaults, and available with 2.5 liter inline four or Peugeot-Renault-Volvo 3.0 liter V6. Pre-production prototypes had Renault badges, but these were replaced with Eagle badges. The Bricklin lurking behind our example is a reminder of the difficulties of launching a new make of car, and the Jeep signs above it suggest that AMC's path to success may have been easier if it had invested as much effort into renewing the Jeep brand, in the face of growing demand for SUVs. After all, it had earlier produced AWD versions of its Hornet, and Audi was having some success with its Quattro line. When Chrysler bought out Renault's stake in AMC, it was because Chrysler management saw Jeep as the prize. But that is a story for another day...
*Footnote: We took a closer look at the Alpine Renault A310 and its A110 predecessor in "Forgotten Classic: Alpine Renault A310", posted here on January 9, 2021, and profiled Amédée Gordini's racing cars in "The Etceterini Files Part 6—Gordini: French Connection, Chicago Subplot", from March 27, 2016.
Photo Credits:
Top, plus 5th, 7th and 8th from top: Groupe Renault S.A.
Top, plus 5th, 7th and 8th from top: Groupe Renault S.A.
2nd & 3rs: Gogo Heinrich
4th, 6th, 9th & 10th:: the author
4th, 6th, 9th & 10th:: the author
11th:: bringatrailer.com
12th & bottom:: Wikimedia