It’s Tuesday! You know what that means! It means that I just remembered I forgot about Mercury Monday and I don’t care, I just don’t care, and I don’t care what David says about it, either. Instead, we’re just going to sit here and contemplate the Renault Dauphine just because it’s so damned charming and I think that’s what I need right now to start the day: a charming-ass car that only wants to be a charming-ass car to make you a little bit happier. Isn’t that all any of us are trying to do, anyway?
Look at this interior! All those hounds’ teeth! That rich liver-y color of the vinyl, all the curvy shapes and piping and moldings and that peculiar gray dashboard! Look at that spindly, incredibly delicate gearshift! It looks like a conductors’ baton or a Q-Tip jammed in the floor. This interior is basically this woman
…just, you know, as a car interior.
I want more Dauphine. Give it to me, me:
Aw hell yeah, that’s the stuff right there. Pure, uncut charmium, right from the charmé region of France. Also, is that color really “infant yellow?”
The Dauphine was pretty unashamed about its rear-engine-ness, with a longitudinal inline-four just slung way the hell out behind that rear axle. Also, look how deep that radiator is tucked back there!
Hey, let’s watch an old Dauphine commercial:
There’s a lot of interesting details in there: the old, American-ized pronunciation of “Ren-ALT,” the showing off of city and country horns, the way they say it’s the best-selling four-door import car, because they were a distant second place after the VW Beetle, but the Beetle only had two doors, so, there you go. Also, check out how the US-spec bumper overriders block a good 1/3rd of the already tiny taillights.
Okay, one more charming thing: I love the special spare tire compartment of the Dauphine, and how it looks like it’s sticking its tongue out at you.
I’ve driven the Lane Museum’s Dauphine. It’s absolutely delightful.
Okay, now go forth into your day, friends, made a bit buoyant with some of the contagious charisma of this little dollop of Gallic charm.
Dad had one in the late 50s in Western Mass. It didn’t have a good defroster, so he’d have to wrap up in blankets, open the windows, and blast the defrost, for some reason.
A secretary he knew had one, and one of the rear doors fell off at a traffic light. She threw it in the back and carried on.
All of the names in the brochure seem to be for Prince and Princess. This Ren-ALT Daw-Feen actually means Princess in French. Infante means Princess in Spanish, etc. I like the association of Medici with black. That goes way back in Italian history.
Anyway, too many problems with this thing, but I know that won’t deter Torch. In fact, I think he looks for that in an unloved vehicle.
When, in 1959, our family returned from an army posting in Germany, Dad bought a brand new Dauphine from the dealer in Duluth, MN. His reasoning for the Renault was that it had four doors compared to the VW’s two, so it must be better for a small family. The problem was, of course, that the water-cooled Dauphine with its rear radiator wasn’t designed for northern Minnesota weather. The thing would constantly boil over in the summer and lose its water pump–and we lived 65 miles from the dealer (the nearest source for parts). Luckily, that area of Minnesota has plenty of lakes, streams, ponds, and bogs, and we kept a bucket in the frunk.
Years later (1982) in Santa Cruz, CA, a colleague decided he just had to buy a very pristine Gordini Dauphine. I told him not to, but we were graphic designers, and he insisted that he needed a stylish piece of French design that was cheaper than a Citroen. It lasted a month before it spun a bearing.
Any time I see a French car of this era all I can think of is picnic baskets for some reason.
Also, the correct translation is “baby shit yellow”.
These were horrible little shit boxes. When I was 16 in 1965 I bought one to flip. It was a 1959 and even though it was only 6 years old it had been very poorly resprayed. I worked part time in a body shop and I prepped it to paint once again. Block sanding it I had to be really careful as to not dent the paper thin sheet metal. I finally painted it British Racing Green and it looked great. I couldn’t wait to unload the POS. My daily driver 1957 VW was so much a better car in a million ways. When was the last time any of you saw one on the road?
I’ve only seen one, but it was the one Torch posted about a few months ago. It’s a ’59 Dauphine body on a ’96 Miata chassis. So it doesn’t really count.
How many hounds had to give their teeth for the interiors?? Oh, the horror.
I’m no engineer, and maybe Huibert Mees can chime in, but that said aren’t the Dauphine’s half-shafts swingarms like on the early Corvairs? I don’t see double-jointed half-shafts (with universal joints on both ends of the half-shafts) like on the later Corvairs. Maybe the Dauphine is too cute to be unsafe at any speed.
Yes, they were swing axles and they handled about like a pig on ice.
Well, the Dauphine won the Rallye de Monte-Carlo and three times the Tour de Corse (including one with a feminine crew !), I’ve never seen a Corvair do that…
Interesting how the rust issues with these in the US gets overlooked while the Vega is ostracized. Same with the Corvair and it rear weight biased swing axle design.
My only experience with them though was with the electromagnetic clutch in the rain. Sometimes worked, most of the time not so much.
My grandfather had one in the early 60’s. He worked as an exterminator and it was his company car. It was painted black with Plexiglas wings bolted to the sides. The wings had veins painted on them. There were two stiff springs with red balls attached above the headlights to simulate antenna. It really did look like a bug! I thought is was the most awesome thing ever and going for a ride in it is one of best memories of him. He always smelled of chemicals and died young.
I want a red one
“Also, is that color really “infant yellow?””
Baby with jaundice?
Great article. I liked the Caravelle, too! And that “infant yellow” probably loosely translates to “baby poop yellow.” A family lived on the next street over in Dallas. All the kids in the family got a Renault to drive when they attained driving age. They started with Dauphines and worked their way up to R10s when they went off to college. Dad (an attorney) drove a Mercedes sedan and Mom had a huge 1960 Ford Country Squire wagon. Well, she had the wagon but their maid drove it daily.
prince?
so… princess yellow prince?
I was once loaned one of these in the mid ’70’s for a day, one of the late models with the automatic it was really slow, but because of that in the city it was fun, planning ahead and not losing forward momentum. Using the Smith System of Driving skills as not intended. (-;
Leaves me breathless
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“…the old, American-ized pronunciation of “Ren-ALT,” And Dauphine.
Dad called his a Ren-ALT Daw-FEEN. Lovely.
That commercial really showed the depth of their marketing research. I can still remember all the moms in the neighborhood waxing rhapsodic about the “Standard, American three-gear shift”.
Thanks for sharing, Torch! I love cars that are fun and frolicsome.
The world needs more cars like the Dauphine that are both frisky and thrifty.
Frolicsome. Perfect word choice. Well done.
I’m more fond of the Henny Kilowatt, which was this same car converted to electric.
– But with a lot of lead acid sadness to drag around 🙁
Around here (DK) we had quite a few independent EV startups in the 20th century, but the minimal range always brought them down. Except for the Mini-El, practically a Sinclair C5 with a roof, which was so light, small and slow, that nobody ever went very far in them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CityEl
No one with money had the guts or will to scratch-build an efficient glider from the ground up. I have built a single-seater EV that only consumes 0.007-0.009 kWh/mile at 30-35 mph on flat ground. I get 150-200 miles range at 30-35 mph on only 1.5 kWh. You can do a LOT with even lead acid batteries with that sort of efficiency.
In the crap era, the best efforts included builds like the McKee Sundancer and CDA Towncar, both of which were 0.200 kWh/mile cars. They also both had nearly double the overall CdA value of the 1935 Tatra T77A, a luxobarge with a 0.21 drag coefficient.
If Renault had designed the Dauphine to be slippery, say a 0.2 Cd value with the same frontal area and mass, we could have had 80-100 mile range family cars, using about 1,000 lbs of lead acid sadness in each car, in the 1950s and 1960s, which that puny little 7 horsepower continuous GE motor the Henny Kilowatt had would have been enough to cruise at 65 mph and perhaps top 100 mph, even if it might have been slow to get there. The silver-zinc batteries used in the GM Electrovair II were 4x as dense.
Anyone who had the money didn’t have the vision, and anyone with the vision didn’t have the money.
“That rich liver-y color of the vinyl”
They could call that interior theme ‘foie et oignons’. 🙂
My RSS reader often asks me to confirm the category of articles that appear in my feed. Usually it’s pretty good at recognizing “automotive” as the genre for Autopian articles, but Torch’s stuff always completely baffles it. Today the RSS reader asked me: “Is this article about parenting?”. I think it was the “infant yellow” remark that tripped it up.
You could also get the Gordini 1093 which made a ravenous 55 hp
My brother had the Gordini post-army/pre-marriage.
One in vert segur, por favor.
Design needs to sit right there next to the Austin Healey Mk1 Sprite in the “charmed” category
I clicked this only hoping the wonderful spare wheel compartment flap was in the article. And by golly, it was! Thanks (thumbs up emoji)
The Lancia Fulvia Coupé Zagato also has one, in the other end of course, on some year models. Maybe you should also do an article about it’s amazing rear hatch ventilation system (if you haven’t already) 🙂
Just watched the video also: “Standard american three gear shift” is a really marketing’y way of saying it hasn’t got four, like the Volkswagen had right from the beginning. But hey, it had two horns!
I’ve always hated trunk hatches with filament bulbs in them. I think it’s a serious design flaw. The ones in the rear center on my Citroën XM kept popping all the time, and I think the Dauphine front bulbs will (would?) as well.
License plate bulbs are very often placed in the hatch, and even though nobody can claim they’re THAT important, it’s irritating to have to change them before going for an inspection/MOT/TÜV.
You bourgeoisie and your fancy Dauphines! Bah!
I’ll continue to farm dirt and drive my 4CVs with the rest of my proletariat brethren!
*While secretly knowing I have the hot-rodded 845cc Dauphine engine nestled in the rear. hehehe
Now, I love these cars. Funky Frenchness, rear engine, different yet traditional…
My uncle had one with no rust, rebuilt engine, and (as they say) patina. Said I could have it for 4k. If only, if only… 2016 me was a bit dimmer.