The Sunday News
Lovert Mafukure
The Renault 4 marked its 50 year Anniversary a few years ago and it is apparently the best selling French car across the whole world. A few weeks ago I wrote a piece on the Renault 4 with much of what I knew and not exactly what I experienced, Until Now! I didn’t even know Willow-vale assembled these babies.
I recently had a chance to feel one Renault 4 and though I didn’t get to drive it I experienced that French vibe, the French are known for some pretty exotic stuff and the cars to come out of this era were more quirky than they were beautiful. That quirkiness is what made them different though. They were not quite like the Americans, the Americans new nothing about small engines and quirkiness.
They knew everything about flamboyance and power. I guess the bureaucratic issues regarding the manufacture of cars limited the Europeans at the time. Whatever the case may be, France lived in its own world and produced cars then that would make a mark even decades later, talk of the Citroens, the Peugeots and of course the Renaults.
I will quote one journalist who said, “the Renault 4 had enough space for children, prams, wives, groceries, husbands, dogs, bags, baggage and room to spare” as I would get to experience. As I said, the French were more about the functionality and economy of their cars. Here is a car that was easy of fuel, had space for Africa and was never in that much of a rush to go anywhere even if it wanted to, simplicity at its best. It was all about mobility…how fast you got to where you were going is a story for another day. This particular car is currently having fuel economy issues and I reckon it needs a new carburettor as the one on it seemingly cannot be tuned.
The Renault 4 was a simple car, simply designed with a sharp pointy stance. It came with 4 doors with sliding windows, you know the type that you found on yesteryear’s kitchen cupboards? Yeah, wind up was a thing of the future for them. Slim chrome bumpers in front and at the back, large fenders and very small lights upfront housed inside an aluminium grill.
As much as the French were limited in many ways, they didn’t compromise on ride comfort. Soft suspension and comfortable seats came standard. Remember, France then had just come out war and the Renault 4 was a success of worthy mention in its post war era and was assembled in more than 20 countries including South Africa. It went on to be one of the most produced cars following closely after the VW beetle. It’s nice to see people that still love them and have a nice history of the cars. I was surprised to see a Willowvale stamp on this Renault 4, Renault 4s were also assembled by Willowvale Motor Industries back in the day.
Over 8 million Renault 4s were sold across the whole world. At a time when companies like VW were making it with their air-cooled engines, Renault contemplated going that route seeing as though even France’s own Citroen was getting a good run from the air-cooled engines. After some deliberations, they opted for the water-cooled engine. They designed a “sealed for life” cooling system that did not need topping of coolant, I’m not sure how well that worked out in the end because to me it seems like it wasn’t well thought out. This particular Renault seems to have a normal radiator and a small cooling fan.
The Renault 4 had a 700cc 4 cylinder overhead valve engine. It produced some 25horses. Like I said, the French were not flamboyant and power hungry like the Americans, I believe they were just after mobility and functionality! It was designed to have a three speed manual gearbox, which was described then as an obsolete feature for a car designed in its time.
Other models already had four and five speed gearboxes. In 1968, however, the Renault4 received a lifeline in the form of a 4 speed manual gearbox, thumbs up to the French. The engine was longitudinally aligned with the gearbox in front of it. It looks a bit awkward but as the first Renault to have Front wheel drive its understandable.
This car looks small, it feels small and the engine is quite small. It weighs just 650kgs or so. Body panels are light, the doors are slim and not much going on inside the cabin but its quite neat with a column shift and very slim Dash. The steering doesn’t look quite like it’s from its era with that Renault diamond-like logo in the centre. Besides feeling very cheap, I reckon it was a good budget car to have lasted this long.
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