Bleu, blanc, beige – just plain 4midable
With well over 8 million made from 1961 to 1994, the Renault 4 still holds the highest production number for a French car. It’s only fair to have three to look at, given how many were built. So which is it going to be? The humble Renault 4, the legendary Renault 4 or the atrocious Renault 4? Let’s mix’n’match them and see what happens.
I’ll forego the technical description, as the R4’s highly distinctive underpinnings have already been the subject of one or two excellent posts already. Suffice to say, then, that the Renault 4 was the first Renault’s first FWD car, though the Estafette minivan pre-dated it by a couple of years. It was a clever (and quite blatant) 2CV rip-off, but packaged in a far more convenient and modern way. The rear hatch, the water-cooled 4-cyl. engines and the rather more spacious cabin were definitely in the Renault’s favour. Right from the start, sales were huge.
The Renault 4 wasn’t anything to look at, but compared to the Citroën 2CV or the new 3CV Ami 6… The other domestic rival in the lowest-price field was the Simca 1000 (4 and 5CV) – also launched in 1961, though a world apart in terms of design philosophy. (The Panhard PL 17, though only powered by a 5CV 850cc twin, was a class or two above in terms of performance, passenger comfort and price.)
Prototype testing in the Sahara desert, 1959.
The initial R4s had a 747cc engine (as used in the rear-engined Renault 4CV) with a three-speed manual (no synchro on first, naturellement). When production began in August 1961, the basic R4 was only available in gray, without C-pillar windows and zero chrome trim. It was joined by the R4 Limousine – the famous 4L, which had more chrome trim and creature comforts, and by the even-cheaper 600cc (3 CV) Renault 3, which was ignored and quickly nixed. The 4L became the number one seller, so much so that “Quatrelle” would be the model’s colloquial moniker for the rest of its life.
1964-67 Parisienne and 1962 range
The only way to go was up. A deluxe Renault 4 Super arrived mid-1962 and got the Dauphine’s 845cc (5 CV) engine in 1963; a super-duper-deluxe Parisienne also appeared. These were a bit too expensive for what they were (in mid-‘60s, a 4 Super cost as much as a Dauphine Gordini), so the deluxe R4s were ultimately transformed into the Renault 6. (In my book, the R6 (1968-86), which was identical to the R4 in everything but looks and displacement, should count as a Renault 4. That would bring total production of the R4/R6/F4/F6/Rodeo family to over 10 million units, two thirds of which were exported. The R5/Le Car was also closely related to the R4, but it had a monocoque body and was aimed at a very different market, so it should remain separate. But I digress.)
There were many important changes (new gearbox, revamped engine, new grille, new dashboard, seat belts, etc.) throughout the ‘60s, culminating in the switch to 12-volt electrics in 1970. The Renault 4 was now almost a decade old, and it had only just reached maturity. The R6 had pilfered its older sibling’s bigger engine, so the only option on the R4 in those days was a 782cc 4-cyl., providing all of 27 hp DIN.
Our white feature car is a good example of this “peak R4” era of the early ‘70s. The chrome side trim, sliding rear windows and black bumper guards tell us this is the 4 Export (formerly known as 4L); the “Vazarely” Renault logo narrows the production years to 1973-74. The little Renault chrome badge on the right front wing was no longer there in ’74. Élémentaire, mon cher Watson.
Alas, all too quickly, the darkness came. It struck in the form of a new plastic grille in 1975. And the chrome bumpers became painted gray; in disgust, the mirrors turned mat. Nobody was spared, not even the vans.
And in 1976, Renault made a misguided attempt at a “special young-person’s version” called Safari, which introduced the cladding. So much horrible, badly executed and needless cladding… It was made less horrible on the GTL, but it stayed there. The black bumpers imitated the look of the fashionable rubber ones, managing to look ugly and pointless. The gangrene had set in. The last straw was the Renault 5-type dash. It was murder. And it was now the ‘80s.
The decade that taste forgot was tough on this little ‘60s renegade, as we can see from this GTL that certainly dates from after 1982, but cannot be younger than 1986, when the model name was dropped, becoming the “Clan” (good thing the R4 was never exported to the US!). In the ‘80s, R4s came in three flavours: base “4” model (still 782cc), the 4 TL with chrome trim – a.k.a the Export – and the GTL, which arrived in late 1978 wearing the Renault 6’s 1108cc engine (somehow brought down to 34 hp and still in the 4 CV tax band) and front disc brakes.
I caught this one in Tokyo ages ago. It was quite obviously a recent French import. For some reason, these are really big in Japan. I have seen more than a few R4s there and we all know about that Lapin thing. This car somehow fits the Kawaii craze that has permeated the culture to a disturbing degree. And it’s clearly a (recent) French import. Absolutely ideal for your typical foreign-sounding high-end Tokyoite beauty parlour, it seems.
It had had a very nice paint job – too perfect to be original. But then this car doesn’t look like it’s seeing much action. The non-standard chrome mirrors were a nice touch, as were the adorable lozenge-shaped turn signal repeaters. But the plastic cladding on these is just dreadful, though the grey tone makes is less intrusive than the R4 Safari. The GTL also ushered the switch from black plastic to grey for the grille – in this instance, hardly an improvement. Are the extra 7 hp worth it? Tough call…
I don’t think these were ever sold new in Japan, nor did Renault bother much with most of Asia at that time. The Renault 4 was chiefly sold in European/Mediterranean and South American markets – typically, Renault’s French plants would produce around 250,000 units per year throughout the ‘70s. Some French Renault 4 websites claim that these also sold well in Australia and New Zealand. Any comments, mates?
One original sticker and one later addition…
Model years 1967, 1968 and 1969 were the best, results-wise, with over 300,000 saloons made per annum. By the time this GTL came off the production line though, circa 1984, sales were tapering off sharply: less than 130,000 units were made in France that year (plus 100,000 vans). The 4’s appeal waned as the equally practical Renault 5, which was closely related to the 4, sprouted rear doors and got ready for a re-skin. The first to go, on the French market, was the erstwhile Fourgonnette — a.k.a the humble van.
It’s an important subplot in the Renault 4’s story arc, so let’s examine the Fourgonnette in a bit more detail for our third and final R4 of the day. These were officially badged “Renault F4” since 1978, but that name never really stuck. This little van is not too rare in rural France yet, but decent-looking examples like this one are not seen every day. I’m not too sure on the date – between 1983 at the earliest and 1988 at the latest, when French F4 sales were halted.
The Fourgonnette was introduced in late 1962, just one year after the saloon. The vans never fundamentally changed externally, apart from the grille and front bumper – the rear bumper of our beige mid-‘80s van is still the flimsy piece of tubing found on the launch version above. The Fourgonnette was a very popular derivative from the get-go. It shared the saloon’s flat floor, supple suspension, low-cost appeal and durability, but also had a bigger and better cargo area than the 2CV van.
And so the Fourgonnette carried on in parallel with the four-door, switching to the plastic grille and all that. Some turned into family haulers, with long side windows (called Break vitré by Renault), others had a higher roof. The F4 became the quintessential French postman / electrician mode of transport – Postal yellow or EDF blue R4 vans were (and still are) legion in rural France. Our CC numéro trois is a standard-issue 956cc hearing-aid beige F4 – not an old “administration van,” this one. Most likely a small business owner who bought this back in the late ‘80s. In those days – say in 1986, the options for cheap car-based domestic vans were getting scarce: the Citroën Acadiane was still around, but the Simca 1100-based Talbot VF1 had just gone out of production.
In 1975, Renault introduced the 1.1 litre F6 with a 20 cm longer wheelbase and redesigned rear, but it had little impact, given the domination of Talbot/Simca vans in that segment at the time. Van production behaved differently than saloons: it kept creeping up throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s, reaching its high point (over 120,000 produced) in 1983. The F6 was the first Fourgonnette variant to leave the scene, along with the Break vitré, in 1986; production plunged below 40,000 vans (and below 100,000 saloons) by that year.
Above: Sinpar also made 4×4 saloons and vans; below: sports and beach cars – R4 content may vary…
And while we’re at it, let’s remaind ourselves of the R4 plaform’s many uses over the years. Some of these were sold by Renault themselves, but others were not. The latter included the 1962-64 René Bonnet Le Mans cabriolet (top left) and the 1965-68 Sovam coupé (top right), two genuine sports cars using the R4 chassis – but not its tiny engine. On the other hand, there was the imitation Méhari that was the Rodéo, made by ACL-Teilhol but sold through Renault dealerships. The Rodéo was a replacement for the total bomb that was the 1968-70 Plein Air, whose curiously deconstructed body was made by Sinpar. Oh look, I’m digressing again…
R4s equipped with drums all around (i.e. all but the GTL/Clan) kept the handbrake on the left.
Back to our F4 – inside it, as a matter of fact. A completely new dash was put in the whole range by the start of the 1983 model year (i.e. July/August 1982), which really changed the Renault 4’s interior feel for the worse. It also meant the rear-view mirror had to migrate to top of the windshield. Let’s compare the Export’s interior and the GTL’s to really see what a difference ten years make.
Pretty stark, I think you’ll agree. And from what we can see empirically, it looks like seat fabrics were not as good in the ‘80s, either. Just out of curiosity, here’s a look at the original 1961 Renault 4L’s interior.
What a half-baked, cobbled-together atrocity that was, too. The base model R4 was even worse: the only way to know how much gas was in the tank was by using a Model T-style dipstick. See what I mean about the early ‘70s being “peak R4?”
French production and sales stopped in the last weeks of 1992 – just after the car had passed the 30-year mark, and only two years after its eternal rival, the 2CV, was put to sleep. The R4 was moribund, but not quite dead yet: FASA in Spain, Revoz in Slovenia and Somaca in Morocco continued assembling a few saloons until the end of 1994.
A little while ago, I wrote a post about the origins of the all-steel station wagon, which is one criterion to describe what a “modern station wagon” should be. But it could also be argued that the real modern station wagon started here: all-steel, FWD with a rear hatch. Citroën got there first in 1954 with the 11 CV Commerciale (and the 1958 DS Break), but by taking it to its logical conclusion, Renault invented the most popular French car ever made.
Related posts:
Le Curbside Classic: Renault 4 – The First Hatchback, by PN
Storage Yard Classic: Renault 4 – French Basics, by David Saunders
Dash-Cam CC: 1984 Renault 4GTL – The Original Hatchback, by Yohai71
Pope Francis’ Latest Popemobile Is A Curbside Classic: 1984 Renault 4, by PN
Curbside Classic: 1977 Renault Rodéo 6 – If You Can’t Beat ‘Em…, by T87
When my family lived in a village outside Freiburg im Breisgau in the early 1970s, our neighbour had a R4 (I couldn’t recall the model year as I was seven or eight).
The bored kids would sometimes sneak round to his car and move the levers below the headlamps as to mess with the aiming. The neighbour was a very prolific swearer, which the kids loved to hear, and had to readjust them a lot of times. He came up with the brilliant idea of using nail polish to mark the correct position.
All’s good, right? Nope, one clever boy helped himself to his mum’s nail polish and painted several more marks then messed with the aiming.
What’s more, a Renault sales and repair centre nearby wasn’t spared…
hehehe
I still don’t know what to make of these. But I will completely agree with you that it was sad watching the era of paint, chrome and stainless devolve into the era of black plastic and cladding.
It’s understandable since you grew up in the US. They were among the vehicles that provided transportation to families for the first time ever. This was the generation that endured and survived WW II. Just having a car was a big deal. And this one was a car – not a jalopy. It is a product of an era. You can’t bring the era back.
Of course I am biased because it was our family’s first car. It did everything we needed to do and some. Three of us learnt how to drive with it. My dad commuted to work with it. It took the family on Sunday outings and visits. It even took us across the Alps on a vacation. You could have done the same in a VW but the R4 was more comfortable, more practical and cheaper to buy and run. The low expenses were really important because blue color one- earner families were numerous and busy building homes.
Is there an American equivalent? It’s a serous question. I don’t think so.
“Is there an American equivalent? It’s a serous question. ”
I would say that the Ford Model T would be the American version. America’s size and prosperity (and Henry Ford’s mass production line) (and the fact that WWI was not fought here) brought the ability to own a vehicle to ordinary people a generation before that happened in Europe. The difference is that almost everyone who experienced life with that first Model T in the family is long dead, so there is nobody left to tell us what it was like, as you did so eloquently in your comment.
[Edit] If the Model T would be too simple and basic (much like a 2CV) I would say 2 things – First, 1920’s definition of a “real car” was simpler than what it would have been in 1950s-60s Europe. A Model T may not have been a “real car” in 1926 but it certainly was in 1918-20 when mass production really ramped up. Second, perhaps the Chevrolet of the 1920s (and other cars like it, such as the Willys Whippet) that was a definite step up for very little more money might be a good analogy as well.
A Model T may not have been a “real car” in 1926 but it certainly was in 1918-20 when mass production really ramped up. .
Yes, the T was state of the art when it first entered production. Greenfield Village puts the break point between the “Old Car Festival” and the “Motor Muster” at 32/33 as their take is 33 was when the modern car was fully defined, with all steel bodies, high speed engines, synchromesh trannies and 4 wheel brakes.
Talking with the Ford Museum’s transportation curator a while back, I offered that the break point should actually be 27 as the end of the T that year closed the door on the brass era technology and offered a more sharply defined point than the “modern” features, which phased in over several years.
Like Oliver above, my memories of R4s were also formed in a small village outside of Freiburg i. Br. in the 70’s where I was kid too where these were quite common and part of everyday life, much as maybe a Dart or heck, even a VW Bug would be over here. These, ubiquitous as they were, and so delightfully and unapologetically “French”, clattered about and did their jobs every day.
Never fancy, and rarely looking shiny and new, they always seemed to be in a great hurry and usually seemed to be driven with a sense of urgency, or so it seemed to me as a boy. They are still a semi-regular sighting in France, less so in Germany, but always take me back to a simpler place in time, at least for me.
Good memories, thanks T87 for this!
Awesome, Jim! Which town?
We lived in Eschbach and then Kirchzarten (both east of Freiburg i. Br.). My family moved there specifically to be close to the deaf school in Stegen where my brother and I attended before moving to the United States in 1974.
Staufen – so we lived about four miles apart when you were in Eschbach…Born in Freiburg, then lived in Staufen until age 11, then in ’81 the move to that slightly larger town in the US named Los Angeles 🙂
Eschbach (like Staufen) is south though, past Bad Krozingen. Kirchzarten is east.
Small world…Wolfgang (above) is from the same general area too.
There is more than one Eschbach in proximity of Freiburg i. Br. The one that we lived is about 3 km from Stegen and is next to the road that leads to Sankt Peter village in the Black Forest.
It’s so cool to come across a few other people here in CC who lived close to Freiburg i. Br.!
Ah, I see, yeah there are a couple of Staufens as well, but the others are much more North. Either way you were still quite close, my Dad used to commute to Freiburg every day with the Audi 100LS. We took “das Baehnle” to Bad Krozingen and then the big train from there to Freiburg to enjou a Lange Rote auf dem Muensterplatz….
One day we’ll all of us Baden-Wuerttemberger CCers will have to do a Meetup and drink all the beer…
I was born in Geisingen near Donaueschingen. Within a year or so the family moved back to Achern (not Aachen!) were they grew up themselves. Achern is half ways between Offenburg and Baden-Baden. You guys lived in the Southern part of the Black Forest, I lived in the Northern part.
Looks like the R4 suffered the fate of many models as they age: efforts to “keep it fresh”, without spending any money.
For those in the US hankering for a car with a push/pull and rotate shifter, this van is currently on offer in Oceanside, NY.
Every time I see one of these it reminds me of this scene.
Rather more reminds me of the “Saracen” scene in Les Visiteurs, where a R4 Fourgonnette postal van bites the dust at the hands of two medieval time travellers.
CC effect striking again when I saw this R4 Fourgonnette just yesterday. It’s a fairly late model yet since it’s got the blocky dashboard, yet already (?) carries oldtimer vehicle plates.
The CC Effect indeed!
That’s an F6 (1.1 litre engine), circa 1983-85.
Love the old 80 kph limit sticker on that, too.
Great feature on an underrated vehicle and a great everlasting feature of rural France. You can easily see the appeal if you travel round rural France for long.
I think you’re spot on with the peak 4 theory. No cladding, no plastic bumpers, flat basic dash mark out a real 4, not something that is being moved away from its true comfort zone.
And please reassure me that those overiders in the front wings are legitimate to use to move the car when the owner is away?
“And please reassure me that those overiders in the front wings are legitimate to use to move the car when the owner is away?”
Hah!- It may not be as easy as one might think. The negative travel of the suspension is enormous. I believe it’s 27cm.
I saw this one in Croatia a couple of weeks ago. Never knew that they were made in Slovenia, too. So maybe this one was buildt by Revoz and never saw la grande nation.
These always seemed quintessentially French. From the hilarious amount of lean in the ultra soft suspension to the barking mad gear lever sprouting from the dashboard. Iirc the engine is fitted the wrong way round too, with the gearbox at the very front and the engine timing case tight up against the firewall. Lots of these, along with the R6 and R16
died at a relatively young age. The critical rear suspension mountings would rust out very easily and it was a very difficult area to repair.
The engine / transmission weren’t the wrong way round, just the old-style FWD layout. Not nearly as good as the transverse engine, of course, but in 1961, there were few of those about aside from the Mini.
I can’t think of another fwd car with the transmission in front of the engine. There are plenty of longitudinal fwd cars (Audi, Lancia, etc) but none with the transmission in front of the engine.
Well how about Citroën, ever heard of them?
Cord did it starting back in 1929.
There is the Cord 810 from the 1930s, but that was a long time ago. (Edit- oops, PN got here first.)
I can somewhat imagine who would have bought a car which was homely, slow, spartan, and cheap in 1961; Europe was still trying to get over the war and almost everything was homely, slow, spartan, and cheap. It might have seemed like a good alternative to a Beetle then, especially with FWD, four doors, and a hatch. But it seems like an awfully mean car; I’m guessing the cheapest Falcon was considerably nicer and more capable than this car. I suppose it was better than the 2CV.
Who on earth would have bought this in 1992? I cannot imagine it being dramatically cheaper or better in any way than the R5, or the 9. I suppose the advantages were it was cheap and simple to repair and a known quantity. Even the Beetle was stopped in Europe in the mid Seventies.
Here Iacocca and GM get heavily criticised for allowing the A and K cars to go on and on forever, but what about this ugly duckling? How could it go from 1961-1994?
I think I’m almost fully recovered from my ’80’s childhood love of French cars, especially like this one. This would be a lot of fun for a friend to have and go round waving at people occasionally but I think it would be too painful and spartan to even have in a collection as an occasional car.
Who on earth would have bought this in 1992?
For starters, folks who had bought one in 1980, or 1976 or 1969 or whenever and were happy with it. And a few nostalgics, cheapskates and aficionados. That didn’t amount to all that many people, but production in the 1989-92 era was still 30-50,000 per annum.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing for cars to have an extremely long (20+ year) production run. But that car has to fill a niche: basic and cheap like the R4, the Beetle, the Model T and many others, or specialist makers such as Morgan, Avanti or Bristol. Anything in between will start to smell after about five-ten years.
Were they sold new in Australia or New Zealand? anything is possible NZ had/has the most crowded car market on the planet back in the day and Ive seen a couple of these Renaults here but whether they were privately imported or supplied new by Renault I have no idea,
Importing lightly used cars to resell has been going on since the dawn of motoring it gained pace pre WW2 and post WW2 when the market was govt controlled and became an avalanche when the personal baggage from Japan was exploited in the 80s, Cars from Europe were always on someones wish list but RHD conversion was required in times of yore not now.
Apparently the Renault 4 was made (I’m assuming CKD) in Heidelberg 1962-66.
I remember seeing them in the early-late sixties, mostly in a sort of pinkish-mushroom beige colour. They weren’t common, but we all knew what they were: “some of those funny Renaults, but these have the engine in the front.”. By the seventies they all seemed to have disappeared.
You definitely caught my attention with that risqué title! And you’ve splendidly covered a very consequential car in French automotive history.
I had no idea these were manufactured from so long. I have to echo SavageATL’s thoughts: just who was buying these by the late 1980s and early 1990s? I remember being surprised they were still selling the 5 in the UK in the mid-1990s and it was only really a decade old. Little did I know that across the Channel, the 4 was still at dealerships…
The R5 got a complete body and chassis makeover in 1984 and became the Super 5, but the new car for that segment was the Clio, which was introduced in 1990 and really killed the Super 5’s sales. After the R4’s demise, the Super 5 took over as the cheapest four-door Renault until 1996.
” just who was buying these by the late 1980s and early 1990s?” I like to point out a few things that could help explain this phenomenon:
Car ownership in Europe was much different from car ownership in the USA. There were sales taxes, value added taxes, taxes based on engine displacement, liability insurance tiered on engine horse power and very steep fuel prices again by taxation. That created room for a large contingent of small cheaply built cars.
Another observation is that there were scores of new family foundations and scores of young people entering the work place. Baby boomers were growing up after all. More women were entering the workforce too.
And building a house remained first priority for much of Europe for that entire period. The USA was affluent earlier, the distances travelled were longer and the roads wider while the fuel was cheap. Taxation (registration) was much less and based on value and insurance based on the financial risks without the artificial tiers based on engine power.
As others have said, these really were the successor to the VW in making personal automotive mobility affordable to millions of buyers in Europe during the 70s and early 80s, mainly. By the mid-late 80s, most Northern European fist-time buyers had better alternatives, but in places like Spain and Portugal and other late-bloomers, these were still popular first cars for some time yet.
And in many ways it was a better VW, inasmuch as its FWD and rear hatch made its interior space much more flexible.
Keeps on ticking: just saw a few fours in Portugal this September.