Renault 4CV

The Renault 4CV (, as if spelled quat'chevaux)[4] is a car produced by the French company Renault from August 1947 through July 1961. It is a four-door economy car with its engine mounted in the rear and driving the rear wheels. It was the first French car to sell over a million units, and was superseded by the Dauphine.

The 4CV was of monocoque construction, 3.6 m in length with front suicide doors.[5]

CV is the abbreviation of chevaux-vapeur, the French equivalent to "horsepower" as a unit of power. The name 4CV thus refers to the car's tax horsepower.

Conception and development

The 4CV was originally conceived and designed covertly by Renault engineers during the World War II German occupation of France, when the manufacturer was under strict orders to design and produce only commercial and military vehicles. Between 1941 and 1944 Renault was placed under the technical directorship of a francophile engineer,

Volkswagen influence

In November 1945 the government invited Ferdinand Porsche to France to explore the possibility of relocating the Volkswagen project to France as part of the reparations package then under discussion.[8] On 15 December 1945, Porsche found himself invited to provide Renault with advice concerning their forthcoming Renault 4CV. Earlier that year, after the death in suspicious circumstances of Louis Renault, newly nationalised Renault had officially acquired a new boss, the former resistance hero Pierre Lefaucheux, who had been acting administrator since September 1944. He had been arrested by the Gestapo in June 1944, and deported to Buchenwald concentration camp. The Gestapo transferred him to Metz for interrogation, but the city was deserted because of the advancing allied front and the Germans abandoned their prisoner.

Lefaucheux was enraged that anyone should think the Renault 4CV, by then almost production-ready, was in any way inspired by the Volkswagen, and even more enraged that the politicians should presume to send Porsche to provide advice on it. The government insisted on nine meetings involving Porsche which took place in rapid succession. Lefaucheux insisted that the meetings would have absolutely no influence on the design of the Renault 4CV, and Porsche cautiously went on record with the view that the car would be ready for large scale production in a year.[9]

Lefaucheux was a man with contacts. As soon as the 4CV project meetings mandated by the politicians had taken place, Porsche was arrested in connection with war crimes allegations involving the use of forced labour including French in the Volkswagen plant in Germany. Porsche was accompanied on his visit to the Renault plant by his son Ferry, and the two were offered release in return for a substantial cash payment. Porsche was able to provide only half of the amount demanded, with the result that Ferry Porsche was sent back to Germany, while Ferdinand Porsche, despite never facing any sort of trial, spent the next twenty months in a Dijon jail.

The first prototype had only two doors and was completed in 1942, and two more prototypes were produced in the following three years. Later, Lefaucheux, appointed to the top job at Renault early in 1945, tested the 4CV prototype at Louis Renault's Herqueville estate.[10]

Launch and market reception

The 4CV was ultimately presented to the public and media at the 1946 Paris Motor Show and went on sale a year later. Volume production was said to have commenced at the company's Billancourt plant a few weeks before the Paris Motor Show of October 1947, although the cars were in very short supply for the next year or so. Renault's advertising highlighted the hundreds of machine-tools installed and processes adopted for the assembly of the first high volume car to be produced since the war, boasting that the little car was now no longer a prototype but a reality.[13][14]

On the 4CV's launch, it was nicknamed "La motte de beurre" (the lump of butter); this was due to the combination of its shape and the fact that early deliveries all used surplus paint from the German Army vehicles of Rommel's Afrika Korps, which were a sand-yellow color.[15] Later it was known affectionately as the "quatre pattes", "four paws". The 4CV was initially powered by a 760 cc rear-mounted four-cylinder engine coupled to a three-speed manual transmission.[16] In 1950, the 760 cc unit was replaced by a narrower-bore, 747 cc version[16] of the "Billancourt" engine producing 17 PS. This marginally smaller variant was developed so as to stay beneath the significant 750 cc tax threshold in many markets.

Despite an initial period of uncertainty and poor sales due to the ravaged state of the French economy, the 4CV had sold 37,000 units by mid-1949 and was the most popular car in France. Across the Rhine 1,760 4CVs were sold in West Germany in 1950, accounting for 23% of that country's imported cars, and ranking second only to the Fiat 500 on the list.[17] The car remained in production for more than another decade. Claimed power output increased subsequently to 21 hp as increased fuel octanes allowed for higher compression ratios, which along with the relatively low 620 kg weight of the car which enabled the manufacturer to report a 0 - 90 km/h time of 38 seconds and a top speed barely under 100 km/h.[15] The engine was notable also for its flexibility, the second and top gear both being usable for speeds between 5 and 100 km/h; the absence of synchromesh on first gear would presumably have discouraged use of the bottom gear except when starting from rest.[15]

References

[https://web.archive.org/web/20160223030703/http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1952-Renault-US-4CV-750-Quintette-Sedan-Convertible-Panel-Deliv-Brochure-wu0610-/371027208758?hash=item5662f1ea36:g:gHsAAOxyUgtTKfIU 1952 Renault US 4CV 750 Quintette Sedan Convertible Panel Deliv. Brochure wu0610, www.ebay.co.uk, as archived at web.archive.org]^

The Renault 4CV (750) In Australia, Restored Cars Number 202, Sep-Oct 2010, pages 38-39^

Our history in the UK Renault, retrieved 30 July 2017^

M.V. Malherbe. La langue françoise,: expliquée dans un ordre nouveau, ou l'on trouve des principes certains sur toutes les parties du discours. Plusieurs lettres choisies, tirées des meilleurs auteurs, avec des remarques critiques & un abregé de la versification 1725^

Motoring Memories: Renault 4CV, 1947-1961, by Bill Vance Canadian Driver, April 18, 2008^

Automobilia Toutes les Voitures Françaises 1940 - 46 (Les Années Sans Salon), Histoire & collections, 2003^

In Autumn 1940, a few months after the German invasion, Renault expressed himself to Serre, "Après la fin de cette maudite guerre, nous ferons des Juvaquatre et Primaquatre modernisées, rien d'autre" (After the end of this damned war we will make modernised Juvaquatres and Primaquatres: nothing else). Picard and Serre persisted nevertheless.^

L'épopée de Renault Éditions Albin Michel, 1976^

Renault, l'Empire de Billancourt EPA, 1977^

H. DeWayne Ashmead, Ph.D. The History and Development of the Renault Caravelle^

Obituary flutterby.com^

Renault History Renault, via conceptcarz.com^

Automobilia Toutes les Voitures Françaises 1948 (Salon Paris Oct 1947), Histoire & collections, 2001^

"La Premiere des nouvelles voitures françaises construite en grande série depuis la guerre....La 4 CV n'est plus un prototype mais une réalité"^

Erinnern Sie sich? Volkswagen auf französisch: Der Renault 4CV Auto, Motor und Sport, 22 June 1977^

Renault 4CV at www.motorcase.com Retrieved on 16 September 2010^

Automobile: Mit einem einzigen Blick kann man aus der Außenhandelsstatistik 1950 ablesen, daß .... Der Spiegel, 1951-04-17^

Two night time "scoop" photographs of a prototype under test that appeared in L'Auto-Journal in October 1952 demonstrate that the body design of the Renault Dauphine had already been virtually finalised in 1952 even though the car would not be launched in the market for another four years^

Automobilia Toutes les Voitures Françaises 1953 (Salon Paris Oct 1952), Histoire & collections, 2000^

Renault 760 Saloon (road test) Autocar Road Test Compendium, 1950^

Jim Koscs. Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Beach Cars The New York Times, 2013-07-05^

aka	Hino 4CV Renault 4/4 Renault 760 Renault 750 Renault Quintette‡R1R‡
manufacturer	Renault
production	1947–1961 1,105,543 produced
assembly	Billancourt, France Sydney, Australia‡R2R‡ Acton, England‡R3R‡ Hino-shi, Japan Valladolid, Spain Nesher, Israel
class	Small car (B)
body style	4-door saloon car 4-door cabriolet 4-door panel van‡R1R‡
engine	747 cc Billancourt I4 760 cc Billancourt I4
transmission	3-speed manual
layout	RR layout
length	3663 mm
width	1430 mm
height	1470 mm
weight	620 kg
predecessor	Renault Juvaquatre
successor	Renault Dauphine Renault 4

Conception and development

Volkswagen influence

Ready for release

Launch and market reception

Handling

Broadening the range downmarket

Replacement

Around the world

Renault Beach Wagon

Renault Fiftie

External links

References