The most important car
It's probably not what you think
The Associate Editor of a classic car magazine I write for has sometimes expressed amusement at my habit of introducing references to, in articles not specifically about Renaults, Renaults. Anyone who knew me as a child might have seen this coming, since back then Renault was ‘my’ car manufacturer.
I dare say that before I had reached double figures I knew more about it than almost any adult in the country who did not have a direct connection with the motor industry. I knew that its founder, Louis Renault, was a very successful racing driver, and that the 1903 Paris-Madrid road race was cancelled after his brother Marcel killed in one of that tragic event’s many accidents. I knew who took over from Louis as company boss (Pierre Lefaucheux) and how he died (suitcase in the back of the neck when he rolled his car after hitting a patch of ice near St Dizier on the way to a business meeting) and who in turn took over from him (Pierre Dreyfus). I knew that the prototype of Renault's first post-War car, the 4CV, was nicknamed the ‘little pat of butter’, and I could identify all the models that followed it, and some of the earlier ones, and several design studies were abandoned before anything like them went into production.
At the front and centre of my interest in Renaults, and indeed of my enthusiasm for motoring in general, was a particular model called the Renault 8. There was one in the family for a few months, and it was almost certainly the first car I was able to identify. I don’t remember much about it, but I do remember riding in the back as we moved house when I was three years old.
For a very long time after that, I had no further personal experience of an 8, and never expected to. But then, in 2014, I was invited to the UK press launch of the third-generation Renault Twingo. New Twingos abounded, of course, since that was the whole point of the exercise, but there was also an original 1990s Twingo, transported for the occasion from the company’s heritage centre.
Unlike that car, the new model had its engine in the rear, and to emphasise that point Renault also brought along a couple of classic cars from the same source, both of which had theirs in the rear too. One of them was a 4CV. The other, to my delight and astonishment, was an 8.
I sidled over to Jeremy, then Renault’s UK Communications Director and now performing a similar role elsewhere. The following conversation wasn’t recorded, so perhaps I’m not reporting it accurately, but this is how I remember it.
“Can we drive the heritage cars?” I asked.
Jeremy did not let his usual politeness drop in the slightest, but I’m sure there was an edge in his voice as he replied, “You’re not insured to drive the Twingo or the 4CV.”
This was promising. A possibility had been left unsaid, but it was hanging in the air.
“Am I,” I inquired further, trying to appear calm, “insured to drive the 8?”
“You are, but we only brought it for display purposes.”
“If you let me drive it,” I said, as if unexpectedly laying before him an Ace from a hand of cards he thought contained nothing better than a six, “I will definitely write about it.” This was a crucial moment. If persuading journalists to write about their cars isn’t central to the job description of a manufacturer’s Communications Director, what on earth is?
“Half an hour, maximum,” he said.
“I promise.”
“Be very careful,” he said as he handed me the keys, which were more welcome than all the Christmas presents I’ve ever had. “I mean it.”
Of course I’d be careful. I climbed in, fired up the 1108cc engine (that has been my favourite four-figure number for as long as I can remember, precisely because of its association with this car) and heard again the tinkling, gurgling noise it makes, so familiar though so long unheard.
I already knew that changing gear in an 8 is, as my music teacher once described conducting the school orchestra, like taking a jellyfish for a walk on an elastic lead, but this was my first direct experience of it. It took time to master, a process complicated by the fact that I was also trying to persuade the car not to go sideways through corners, which is something Renault 8s like to do if they get a chance.
On the plus side, the steering and the actions of all three pedals were unbelievably smooth, by the standards of not only a vehicle designed in the early 1960s but of any built since. I loved that engine note too, but above all I loved the fact that I was actually driving an example of what, I now realised, had been and would always be the most important car in my life.
I was back at base camp about twenty minutes after I’d left. I switched off the engine and sat in the 8 for a while, not wanting to send it back to my personal past just yet. I got out eventually, gave Jeremy the keys, thanked him briefly but very sincerely for the opportunity and then quickly turned away from him, hoping he hadn’t had time to notice my shining eyes.
A Renault 8. Isn’t it lovely? Sigh.
Photo copyright Renault.