Drivetime
The Dauphine deserves a lot of respect , it was one of the true pioneers of the modern continental car
Some cars we remember for the right reasons and some, like the Renault Dauphine, we tend to remember for all the wrong ones.
It has to be said that the Dauphine could rust for Britain if not looked after. It loved the dry atmosphere of the South of France, but the damp, British environment made its bodywork water traps a headache for UK owners.
When I was young we called it the amazing dissolving car, which was somewhat unfair because you could keep corrosion at bay with a lot of tlc.
The Dauphine may be a forgotten orphan of France, but it has to be treated with a lot of respect because it was one of the true pioneers of the modern continental car. Its rounded lines and clever TV advertising gained it quite a following in the UK and it was the forerunner of cars like the Renault Megane which are so popular today.
The story started in 1956 when Renault unveiled a four-door sedan which took the Dauphine name. It featured a rear watercooled engine, rear-wheel-drive
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Its 0-60mph time was calculated by one magazine to be a long winded 32 seconds.but according to the TV advert you had “performance and power at seventy miles an hour...” and you had to take account of the fact that “the built in heater couldn’t be neater!”
The Dauphine was in production into the late 60s and a few performance options were available. For the 1957 model year, Amedee Gordini engineered a version of the Dauphine with certain engine modifications that increased the horsepower about 20 per cent, from 32hp to 38hp. In 1961 the Gordini Dauphine’s horsepower was upped again, this time to 40hp.
In the USA it was even possible to fit a supercharger which sold for $165, and was designed to be installed in about two hours without any chassis or body modifications.
The last factory-built Dauphine was introduced in 1962. It was a limited edition, with only about 1,000 built.
But despite the lengthy production run, Dauphines in the UK quickly slipped silently into the history books.