Introduced in 1947, the Renault 4CV was the first French car to sell more than one million units.
True to our name, Mac’s Motor City Garage is mainly focused on American automobiles, particularly of the Detroit variety. That said, we also try to maintain the big picture, presenting historically important vehicles from all around the world—see our features on the Fiat Topolino, the Renault Dauphine, the Citroen 2CV, and so on. Another globally significant car in our book is the Renault 4CV. While it never made much of a splash here in the USA, it sold more than 1.1 million units in France between 1947 and 1961, and it also spawned a Japanese variant, the Hino Renault 4CV of 1953-61.
Formally unveiled at the Paris Motor Show in October of 1946, the Renault boasted unit construction with four doors (the front doors open at the front, note) and a four-cylinder, water-cooled engine at the rear. Sporting just 760 cc, the engine was rated at four horsepower for French tax purposes (hence the name, an abbreviation of cheval vapeur) but originally produced somewhere around 17 net hp. Barely 12 feet long and weighing only 1,360 lbs, the 4CV was inexpensive to operate and fun to drive, with light, fast steering. In this original Renault commercial, the messaging is all about mobility and freedom. Video below.
Well, this is unexpected. My ( and my brother’s) 1st car. I was 15, my brother 17, and already had his license, ’69 or ’70. We found the car, a ’59, at a sports car dealer in Thiensville, Wis. in the back row. We paid $50 bucks and the motor was stuck. It was remarkably rust free, so couldn’t have been a local car. We took the head off and freed the motor with a baseball bat, got it running, my brother painted it in the garage with an electric sprayer, it came out pretty nice for a garage job. We took it to school several times, until one day, we found it on the HS steps, carried there by those senior hooligans. We didn’t take it to school after that. It wasn’t much of a car, but it had several features the VW didn’t have. A real heater, 4 doors, a conventional motor. Performance on par with the VW, but seemed to handle better.We moved on from the tiny 4CV, me, a ’58 Volvo 444, brother, a ’63 Alfa 1300 Spider,( worth 6 figures today) but neither one of us will ever forget our 1st car.
A neighbour was a Renault tragic. And I agree with everything you say.
Probably quicker than a VW of the era and with far better handling.
In the late 70s I raced Rallycross against one, with a 16TS in the back which went like stink. Until it end for ended. Replaced with an R8 as CAMS would no longer log book suicide door cars. It used all the same mechanicals. Renault stuff all seems to interchange.
Most of the taxis in Saigon were this make in the late 1960s.