Renault had high hopes for its R5 in the US. After struggling to get back its footing after the rise and fall of the Dauphine in the 50s and early 60s, Renault soldiered on through the 60s with it rear-engine R8 and R10, and then the very advanced R16, which was anything but a hit in the states. But the timing of the R5 was propitious, coming on the heels of the first energy crisis, which really spurred interest in small FWD hatchbacks.
The main competition were the new VW Rabbit and the Honda Civic. Tough competition. But the R5 had one are of unique superiority: the supple French ride, which would seem to be a perfect fit with Americans, who were known to appreciate that commodity, although without the F-word as a prefix.
The R5 was a huge success for Renault in Europe, which was one of the reasons it didn’t appear here sooner: a lack of capacity. It was small; some 14″ shorter than the Rabbit, meaning more directly in the Civic’s ball park. And R&T found it to be a good performer, and economical (33mpg). The soft ride had only a relatively minor negative affect on handling, as anyone familiar with French cars will confirm: they may look like they’re about to tip over, but don’t let that fool you.
The “Le Car” name was not used on US-bound R5s in the first year, at least, although that’s certainly how most American remember it, if at all.
The R5/Le Car had a lot of redeeming qualities, but with tough competition from the Civic and the Rabbit, the R5 never really made it big here for Renault either, although certainly more so than anything since the Dauphine. But in the popular memory of Americans, it was just another weird little French car that showed certain weaknesses as it aged. The comparison against the Civic in that regard was really stark, and explains why the two had such divergent trajectories.
Unfortunately, it also came with the kind of reliability that Detroit claimed was impossible (and not in a good way.) 🙂
Aye, there’s the rub. As a former owner, I can certainly say this was probably my least forgettable car. A lot to recommend it. A lot of fun to drive around town. Basic drive-train was pretty robust. Everything else was built to make it as light and flimsy as possible. As a friend of mine used to joke, we could just drive it around to watch the screws back out of their holes. In this part of the country, it got to be the a-number one car for salvage yards to put up on a pole, so their sign could be seen from the freeway.
A Vega I had before it and an S-10 I suffered after it were in the same league, reliability-wise. Probably, worse, in different ways, on core mechanical systems.
Consequently, I’m not sure I wouldn’t buy a French car before I bought another GM car.
As a friend of mine used to joke, we could just drive it around to watch the screws back out of their holes.
Only one part came adrift in mine. In Europe, the R5 had the usual roof mounted radio antenna. Mine had the antenna bracketed on the side of the C pillar. Rather than design a new windshield header trim for the US market, Renault just left the existing header in place, with a big plastic plug screwed into the hole that would have provided access to the antenna. I was driving along one day and heard a clatter inside the car. When I stopped and looked around, I found that approximately 2″ plastic plug had come unscrewed and fallen to the floor. Screwed the plug back in place and went on my way.
What might have happened if they would have pushed this car when the merger with AMC went down? Actually, the R5 was more of what an AMC customer would have wanted. Basic transportation, cheap to buy and own. Would your typical AMC buyer even consider a rebranded R5 as an option for replacing their Hornet or Gremlin? Was that too far a reach for those buyers? Perhaps, perhaps not. But that would have come at the cost of sales of the post-Gremlin Spirit. They would theoretically saved the costs associated with the changes made to create the Spirit, but would the American public warmed to the majority of the AMC line being French imports? History shows that the Reliance/Encore was not a hot seller, but certainly within the parameters of the old AMC based models. Having a “true” economy model may have brought some relief to the company, and the dealer network would have been better than Renault ever had under their own umbrella. Funny that had it been a few years different, it may have positively reshaped the history of both companies.
AMC took over the marketing of the R5 in the USA for 1977 and pushed it hard as the “Le Car”. Though it wasn’t very successful, AMC/Renault continued to market it with ongoing improvements and a new five-door model into the 1980s. The Le Car was dropped after 1983 in favor of the Alliance.
Thanks, that is true. My thought is that while AMC did help with the Le Car marketing, were they offered in AMC dealerships? The research says so, but my memory says “not”. More than likely, I am just suffering from CRS. I just don’t recall seeing them at Firkins Motors in my teenage years, and I was in love with the small hatches. I still am.
Our local dealer was a combined AMC-Renault operation; convenient one-stop shopping for all your quirky, loveable automotive needs.
I barely remember the marketing for these. IIRC, the print ads were as “entertaining” as those for the Civic and Rabbit. So my (probably wrong) conclusion is that the dealers and the reputation of French cars in general is what kept these cars from “taking off”.
I do remember that when Honda first started selling cars, many of the dealers were Honda motorcycle dealers with decent reputations while some dealers added Honda to well established car brands.
I’m not sure an AMC connection would have helped sales of the 5 in the US.
There is a Volvo ad from same era, showing an R5-Le Car, filled with passengers and luggage on the roof, trying to merge into truck filled highway. Statement “you shouldn’t give up safety for miles per gallon”.
As I have probably mentioned before, I had an R5, an 80, bought new. The 80s had a revised, more conventional looking, instrument panel, as well as a larger 1.4 litre engine and a catalytic converter.
On reliability, about one big repair/year: brake proportioning valve, master cylinder, voltage regulator, radiator, which was about the same as most of my 60s/70s Detroit iron that preceded it, and vastly better than the POS Zephyr’s monthly trips to the shop.
When people start holding forth on the miseries of Lucas or Marelli electrics, I invoke Paris Rhone and Ducellier.
What did it in was an alarming propensity to rust. I saw my former car in a restaurant parking lot in 87 and wondered what was still holding the front fenders on. Of course, Hondas of the era were notorious rusters as well. A coworker’s 76 Accord’s front fenders were rusted through by 80.
Driving the car around town was a snap due to the size and outward visibility that is unheard of these days. With the gearing and the torque peak at 2500rpm, it was riding right on the torque peak at 35 in 3rd gear and 45 in 4th. Top speed on the highway depended on which way the wind was blowing. With a tailwind, it would hit 80. With a headwind, it would top out at 55. In those days of horrid carburetors and automatic chokes that always pulled off too soon, regardless of the impact on driveability, the Renault’s manual choke Weber was a revelation. Wonderful driveability.
The R5 was never going to be a success in the US due to the lack of an automatic transmission, though I did see quite a few running around town for a few years.
Were I in Renault’s shoes in the mid 70s, I would have been looking at the R30 for the US, both for it’s size and the availability of the V6 and automatic trans. The R30 is almost exactly the same size as the Chevy Citation and AMC would have beaten the Citation to market by 4 years. With the R30 in the showroom, AMC, having already dropped the Ambassador, could probably have retired the senior platform a year or two earlier than they actually did.
The R30 would have been far too expensive for its own good in the U.S. in the mid/late ’70s. Plus they would have had to graft 5mph bumpers on the poor thing, which would have made the car even uglier.
The R30 never sold well – especially outside France – because it was a luxury car with zero refinement: comfortable but dynamically deficient, bare-bones even with the full options list… A Renault ’70s Ultimate Deadly Sin (shared with the R14).
Several of my college friends had this car. Soft, plush, typically French seats, compliant suspension, excellent ride quality that rivaled (or bettered) some larger cars.
When it started, stopped and ran properly, they were a joy to ride in. WHEN it started and ran….
My AAA card got maxed out on tow jobs several times, pulling these unreliable cars the 50 miles from our college dorm back to New Orleans.
The dealer add on air conditioning system was a fabricated, rigged out POS that over taxed the engine and failed to properly cool off the ample window interior. Without a water temperature gauge on the dashboard (but an ammeter???) only Gawd knows how sizzling hot these cars ran.
It never ceases to amaze how how so many French cars can perform so well in Europe…and perform so badly in the USA.
“It never ceases to amaze how….”
My experience from reading CAR magazine is that (somehow) cars that we Americans find so unreliable, most European car owners think are THE greatest thing on wheels. It may cost several thousand per year in maintenance costs, but as long as it doesn’t flat stop running, it is an okay car.
Probably due to the emission control system and lacklustre lead-free petrol as mandated by the EPA. France didn’t have either in the 1970s.
The emission control and lead-free petrol didn’t arrive in Europe until 1983 when Germans, aghast at the dying forests caused by the acid rain, required them.
France ‘mocked’ Germany by installing the lead-free petrol in a very few fuel stations and gouging Germans the staggering price for the privilige. My uncle told me it was 5-6 Deutsche Mark per litre (the average price in Germany was about DM 1.30).
Lets go for a ride! An 85, with the humungus sunroof. This is the instrument panel mine had. Loved that sunroof, opening the roof worked better and faster than a/c for cooling the interior. The straps that hold the front bow down when the roof is open and prevent the sunroof fabric from catching the wind and becoming a speed brake, are missing on this example.
One other thing about the sunroof. Unlike cars today, the windshield was relatively upright, those wipers are only 13″ long. Sometimes I would stop too close to an intersection and couldn’t see the traffic light through the windshield, so I would look through the open sunroof.
My best friend had a 1980 LeCar….A deluxe version with a bit nicer interior and that huge folding sunroof. The ride was very supple but the car began to rust in less than 2 years ibeing subjected to Buffalo winters…He ended up trading it in a a very conventional and reliable Mazda GLC….I remember the local dealer franchise here in Buffalo sold Renault along with Lincoln Mercury. At the end of the model run they were giving buyers of Lincoln Town Cars a free Le car
…but the car began to rust in less than 2 years being subjected to Buffalo winters…He ended up trading it in a a very conventional and reliable Mazda GLC…
Lol, the exact transition I made, from the 80 LeCar to an 85 GLC. The Mazda put everything I had ever had to shame with it’s reliability and rust resistance, but somehow it lacked the Renault’s character.
The article makes a passing reference to scorn for the earlier Dauphine’s “electric clutch”. I know rather more than probably most about the origin of that clutch—it was Jack Rabinow’s invention—but I know very little about its application by Renault. Was it troublesome by design and specification? Or was it just quirky in the French manner and to the French degree, thus making incompatibility with non-French owner/drivers? Anyone know?
Renault had offered first the Ferlic clutch, a vacuum-operated clutch much like the later VW Automatic Stick Shift.
They later came out with a vacuum/electric manual transmission that operated the clutch & shifted the gears. It even operated by push-button!
Rootes also used a similar system on the “Easi-Drive”.
Tom MacCahill described it as “A little Frenchman under the floor.”
Rootes & Renault used as a clutch a drum filled with iron filings, engaged by electromagnets.
Nothing can go wrong.
It’s the magnetic-particle clutch I’m familiar with the theory of—and still unfamiliar with its practical rectitude or lack thereof.
A car that, in my (relative – early 30’s) youth, I really, really, really wanted. Back in ’85 I found a really nice, clean ’81 at the local Toyota dealer. I showed up, told the (amazed that I didn’t want a Corolla) salesman I’m interested, he got a plate, took my license information, and off we went.
Three miles from the showroom, THE CAR CAUGHT FIRE!
Which, with great disappointment, I realized that this was God telling me that I didn’t want to own a Renault (I’d always liked, nay loved, them, even the Dauphines). It was the only time I’ve ever had a salesman clam up completely, after knocking on some neighborhood door and convincing the person behind it to allow him to use their phone to call the dealership and get a bailout.
We got back to the shop, and he didn’t even try to steer me to a used Corolla.
I didn’t know Renault had originally planned to call this car the “Frog” – as corny as “Le Car” was, it’s miles better than that! A spare tire under the hood always reminds me of the earlier pre-Impreza Subarus.
I’ve heard all kinds of things about the R5, both good and bad.
My main experience with Renault was Dad’s ’72 R-10. He bought it brand new when the Lima, OH dealer was going out of business.
It was an amazing car. Fun to drive. And some of the most comfortable seats I’ve ever experienced.
Wow, I haven’t thought about the LeCar, or seen one, in years. In high school, around 1987 or so, a friend had a LeCar and it seemed so fragile. That’s what I recall. Pieces inside and out were just falling off or breaking off all the time….
My experience with the R5 was with a used 82 model after having to sell a 83 Escort bought new, due to a job loss. Driveability with the R5 was vastly better than the always unhappy Escort. The manual choke always worked and the car exhibited none of the bucking, surging, and lugging the poorly geared 4 speed manual Escort did. Always thought the thing rode way better than a car that size should, much softer than the Ford. Seats were more comfortable too. And talk about spacious, I once brought home a full size dishwasher-in the box-with the hatch closed.
It wasn’t without typical French quirks, but that was part of its charm. The bus like steering wheel angle, the vertical radio whose dial you couldn’t read, the rubbery shifter that wouldn’t be rushed, the fact that the whole seat lifted up and forward to get in the back. One thing I had to constantly repair was the flip out rear windows, whose hinges were oddly only glued on, and at least one of the four was unglued at any given time.
Most people that know me and the typical cars I’ve owned, find it hard to believe I ever owned an R5. But if not for a very expensive quote for a replacement clutch at 108k, it’s hard telling how long I might have kept that little gem.
These are still relatively common across the pond, though rust has claimed many, as is common for cars of that era, especially Renaults. Most folks who owned them (in Europe) were happy with them – 5.5 million sold is no coincidence.
The 2nd generation (Super5, 1985-1996) was also quite popular and offered interesting variants. A friend of mine had a Super 5 Baccara, for instance: excellent seats with real leather, great hi-fi, electric windows, 1.4 litre engine… You could turn these into a mini Benz, if you could afford it.
R&T later had an R5 as a long-term test car. They said that at the end of the test, “… it looked and drove as if it had been through 40,000 hard miles.” Their long-term Honda Civic held up much better.
A roommate of mine in the early ‘80s had a ’78 R5. At one point he had it to the dealer, and one item to be taken care of was that a rear window latch had come unglued from the glass. He showed me the invoice, and it said, “Glue window latch. Cannot guarantee to hold.” I wasn’t impressed. He wound up getting a Honda Civic.
I crave an R5. Or, honestly, though I love a car with its native details, a LeCar is so camp, splashy and fun, I’d love one of them just as much. Make it orange or Kermit green and naturally, it must have le sunroof. Chances of finding a decent one… well, I’ve had an ebay search running for about 9 years and though they come up, they seldom look viable. Someday I’ll get the coolest little car ever.
I remember seeing a cartoon (probably from “Road & Track”) from about the same time as this article showing a drawing of a Renault 5 with “Le Car” written on the side alongside an AMC Pacer that had “The Voiture” written on the side.
I always wanted one of these. Even today, it’s one of the few cars from its era that I crave. I test drove a new one in 80 and another in 83. The problem was that I had a small boat and would not have been able to tow it with an R5. The ride, the handling, the efficient packaging, the face, the sunroof… How could one help but love it?
I can’t decide if I’d rather have a 78-80 Ford Fiesta or an R5…decisions, decisions.
Fiesta, hands down for me. Fun and very well built
Having owned the R5, and ridden in and driven that era Fiesta extensively- buy the Fiesta!
The Renault 5 was an idea of Michel Boué, a designer at Renault who wanted to create a stylish more mature small car. Renault were unbelievebly successfull with their R4, the world’s first mass produced 5-door hatchback.
Boué styled the R5 in his spare time and based the car on the Renault 4 underpinnings.
The car got those famous shield bumpers to protect it in Parisian traffic and the original design had high placed taillights à la Volvo V70 estate.
The first R5 had the 850cc R4 engine complete with umbrella gear lever from the R4 and the more mature 1100 cc engine from the Renault 6 with 4 on the floor.
The tragedy is that Boué died from cancer before the R5 was released.
The R5 had a much more mature feel , the R4 was basically an improved 2CV.
The car became an instant hit thanks to the fuel crisis but we also found a car with the practicality of an R4 and the comfort of the larger R16.
The R5 is regarded as being the first of the Super Mini’s, it was available as a hotter 5LS, which became the 5TS and then the super cool 5 Alpine and Alpine Turbo.
The most impressive model is probably the 5 GTL, to conquer the market a fuel efficient mode was needed , gas prices were sky-high in Europe, the GTL had a total different philosophy:
Renault took the “big” 1300 engine from the R12, fitted it with a small carburettor and a five speed gearbox, the whole car was based on the torque of the engine not revvs, these were nicknamed in Holland as little Cadillacs thanks to the relaxed engine and gave a fantastic MPG.
Maintenance is key for this cars, and I guess that is what kept them unpopulair in the US……you can not drive a French cars without regulair tune-ups and oil changes, there is no 350 sb in there……
These were so ahead of their time and timelessly designed that Renault managed to sell them right until 1996.
My first new car was an 80 LeCar. The first year in the US with rectangular headlights. I still remember that car fondly. The comfortable seats, the supple ride (the salesman included an unpaved street in the test dirve), the outrageous sunroof. Such a fun car. Bigger on the inside than the outside, it kindled my love of hatchbacks.
You know why it didn’t have door handles? So they didn’t scrape when cornering!
Then I traded her in on a new 18i….