The Renault Dauphine () is a rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive, four-door sedan with three-box styling, marketed to the economy sector by Renault from 1956 to 1967 across a single generation.
Along with such cars as the Citroën 2CV, Volkswagen Beetle, Morris Minor, Mini and Fiat 600, the Dauphine pioneered the modern European economy car. More than two million Dauphines were manufactured, many under licence by other manufacturers outside of France.
Renault marketed numerous variants of the Dauphine, including a luxury version, the Renault Ondine; a decontented version, the Dauphine Teimoso (Brazil, 1965); sporting versions marketed as the Dauphine Gordini and the Ondine Gordini, and the 1093 factory racing model; as well as a prominent derivative, the Caravelle/Floride, a Dauphine-based two-door coupé and convertible.
Conception As Louis Renault's successor, and as Renault's chairman, Pierre Lefaucheux continued to defy the postwar French Ministry of Industrial Production – which had wanted to convert Renault solely to truck manufacture. Lefaucheux instead saw Renault's survival in automobiles and achieved considerable success with the 4CV, with over 500,000 produced by 1954.
The Dauphine was born during a conversation with Lefaucheux and engineer Fernand Picard. The two agreed the 4CV was appropriate in its postwar context, but that French consumers would soon need a car appropriate for their increasing standard of living, and the onset of the French Autoroute national highway implementation.
Prototyping Internally known as "Project 109" the Dauphine's engineering began in 1949 with engineers Fernand Picard, Robert Barthaud and Jacques Ousset managing the project.
A 1951 survey conducted by Renault indicated design parameters of a car with a top speed of , seating for four passengers and fuel consumption of less than . The survey indicated that women held stronger opinions about a car's colors than about the car itself (See below, Marrot at Renault).
Engineers spent the next five years developing the Dauphine. Within the first year, designers had created a ⅛th-scale clay model, studied the model's aerodynamics, built a full-scale clay model, studied wood interior mockups of the seating, instrument panel, and steering column – and built the first prototype in metal.
Having largely finalized the exterior design, testing of the prototype began at Renault's facilities at Lardy, France – by secrecy of night, on July 24, 1952.
Using new laboratories and new specially designed tracks, engineers measured maximum speed, acceleration, braking and fuel consumption as well as handling, heating and ventilation, ride, noise levels and parts durability. Engineers tested parts by subjecting them to twisting and vibration stresses, and then redesigning the parts for manufacture.
By August 1953, head engineer Picard had an almond-green prototype delivered to Madrid for dry condition testing, ultimately experiencing only five flat tires and a generator failure after . Subsequently, Lefaucheux ordered engineers to test a Dauphine prototype directly against a Volkswagen Beetle. The engineers determined that noise levels were too high, interior ventilation and door sealing were inadequate and most importantly, the engine capacity was insufficient at only four CV (748 cc). The four-cylinder engine was redesigned to increase its capacity to 845 cc by increasing the bore to 58 mm, giving the car a new informal designation, the 5CV. By 1954 a second series of prototypes incorporated updates, using the older prototypes for crash testing.
Lefaucheux followed the testing carefully, often meeting with his engineers for night testing to ensure secrecy, but did not live to see the Dauphine enter production. He was killed in an automobile accident on February 11, 1955, when he lost control of his Renault Frégate on an icy road and was struck on the head by his unsecured luggage as the car rolled over. The Flins factory was renamed in his honor, and he was succeeded on the project by Pierre Dreyfus.
By the end of testing, drivers had road tested prototypes in everyday conditions including dry weather and dusty condition testing in Madrid, engine testing in Bayonne, cold testing at the Arctic Circle in Norway, suspension testing in Sicily, weatherseal testing in then-Yugoslavia – a total of more than two million kilometres of road and track testing.
In December 1955, Pierre Bonin (director of the Flins Renault Factory) and Fernand Picard presented the first example to leave the factory to Pierre Dreyfus.
Debut Renault officially revealed the model's existence to the press through L’Auto Journal and L’Action Automobile et Touristique in November 1955, referring to it simply by its unofficial model designation "the 5CV".
Advance press preview testing began on February 4, 1956, under the direction of Renault press secretary Robert Sicot, with six Dauphines shipped to Corsica. Journalists were free to drive anywhere on the island, while under contract not to release publication before the embargo date of March 1, 1956.
The Dauphine debuted on March 6, 1956 at Paris' Palais de Chaillot with over twenty thousand people attending, two days before its official introduction at the 1956 Salon International de l'Auto in Geneva.
Name In addition to its internal project number, Project 109, the prototype had been called by its unofficial model designation, the "5CV". Lefaucheux, Renault's chairman, often simply called it La machine de Flins (the Flins machine), referring to the Flins factory where Renault would ultimately initiate its production (and which would later be named in Lefaucheux's honor).
Renault considered the name Corvette for its new model, but to avoid a conflict with GM because of the recently launched Chevrolet Corvette instead chose a name that reinforced the importance of the project's predecessor, the 4CV, to France's postwar industrial rebirth.
The final name was attributed to a dinner conversation at l'auberge de Port-Royal, chaired by Fernand Picard, where either Jean-Richard Deshaies or Marcel Wiriath said "the 4CV is the Queen of the road, the new arrival can only be the Dauphine." Dauphine is the feminine form of the French feudal title of Dauphin, the heir apparent to the throne.
Ironically, both Robert Opron and Flaminio Bertoni of Citroën had wanted to name the Citroën Ami 6 the Dauphine, though by that time, Renault had registered the name.
Design At introduction, the Dauphine was positioned in the marketplace between the concurrently manufactured 4CV, and the much larger Frégate. The new model followed the 4CV's rear-engine, four-door three-box sedan format, while providing greater room and power and pioneering a new focus for Renault on interior and exterior color and design.
Technical The Dauphine used a version of the 4CV's water-cooled Ventoux engine with capacity increased from 760 cc to 845 cc, and power increased from . According to Road & Track, the Dauphine accelerated from in 32 seconds. Engine cooling was facilitated by air intakes behind each rear door and a vented rear fascia.
Heavier and longer than its predecessor, the 4-door body featured monocoque construction with "a pair of perimeter-shaped longitudinal box sections and substantial cross-bracing", but without the 4CV's rear-hinged suicide doors.
Transmissions: Renault offered a three-speed manual transmission for the Dauphine, with synchronizers on 2nd and 3rd gear. In October 1961 synchromesh was provided for the 1st gear.
There was also the option of a semi-automatic transmission – in effect, a manual transmission coupled to dry clutch that engaged and disengaged by touching the gearshift – beginning in 1957 with an electromagnetically-operated Ferlec clutch and no separate clutch pedal – similar to Volkswagen's Autostick. Beginning in 1963, the Dauphine could be had with the three-speed transmission with electro-mechanical control, developed by Jaeger, which functioned as a "fully-automatic" transmission. Renault's "automatic transmission" was controlled by five dash-mounted push-buttons: R-N-D-2-1. A Renault advertisement at the time said "out went the stick, in went the push-buttons – and in stayed the zip, the fun, the economy (35–40 miles a gallon isn't unusual). That's because the only difference between our shift and shiftless cars is this: an electronic control unit on our pushbutton model shifts the gears for you, automatically."Renault Dauphine advertisement, Life magazine, October 4, 1963, p. 23
Suspension: Front suspension was conventional coil-spring/wishbone layout with an anti-roll bar and rack-and-pinion steering, on a detachable front cross member. Rear suspension was a high-pivot swing axle with concentric coil-spring/telescopic dampers sitting atop the swing tubes which Renault called trumpet casings. With the exception of the trunnion arms in the transaxle housing, there was no fore-aft 'location' of the rear suspension. The pressed engine/transaxle/suspension mounting member was detachable from the main body structure. 61 percent of the Dauphine's weight was carried by the rear wheels. The rear swing axle design, unless ameliorated by any of several options, can allow rear tires to undergo large camber changes during fast cornering, leading to oversteer – a dynamically unstable condition in which a vehicle can lose control and spin. Renault relied on a front anti-roll bar as well as tire pressure differential to eliminate oversteer characteristics – low front and high rear tire pressure — and induce understeer. The tire pressure differential strategy offered the disadvantage that owners and mechanics could inadvertently but easily re-introduce oversteer characteristics by over-inflating the front tires. In the United States, drivers (and General Motors) experienced virtually the same issues with the Chevrolet Corvair. In 1960 Renault revised the suspension with the addition of extra rubber springs up front and auxiliary air spring units (mounted inboard of the conventional coils) at the rear – marketing the system as Aerostable – and giving the rear wheels a small degree of negative camber and increased cornering grip. Engine configuration: Speaking about the Dauphine's rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout, Renault's Fernand Picard said in a paper he delivered in 1957 that the car was part of a rear-engine trend led by Volkswagen, Fiat and Renault whereby the rear drive/rear engine configuration had increased from 2.6 percent of continental western Europe's car production in 1946 to 26.6 percent in 1956. The United Kingdom auto industry, which had also managed largely to avoid the front-engine/front-wheel drive trend of the 1930s, was excluded from Picard's figures.
Engine specifications Engine Fuel Power Torque Top speed Power-to-weightratio Type Ventoux 670–1 Gasoline 845 cc at 4000 rpm 37 s 38.43 W/kg(41.54 hp/tonne) Gordini – Ventoux 670–5 Gasoline 845 cc at 4000 rpm 30 s 40.68 W/kg(54.55 hp/tonne)
Styling and interior
Overall, Dauphine styling was a scaled down version of the Renault Frégate, itself a classic three-box design of the ponton genre. Renault received styling assistance for the Dauphine at the request of Lefaucheux in June 1953 from Luigi Segre of Carrozzeria Ghia, especially with integrating the engine's air intake at the rear doors.
The Dauphine had a front-hinged trunklid, which housed the headlights and opened to a trunk. The spare tire was carried horizontally under the front of the car, behind an openable panel below the bumper.
The interior featured adjustable front bucket seats and a rear bench seat, a heater, painted dash matching the exterior, twin courtesy lamps, a white steering wheel, rear bypassing (vs. roll down) windows, twin horns (town and country) selectable by the driver and twin open bins on the dashboard in lieu of gloveboxes. Exterior finishes included a range of pastel colors.