Americans fell out of love with Dauphine

Unless you are a Renault devotee, the 1956 Dauphine is one of those cars that slips easily from view.

Yet, back in its era, it was a popular small car and a race winner as well.

Branded with a French word describing the female heir to the crown, the Dauphine was the old rear-engined Renault 4CV with smart new sheet metal and a slightly larger 856cc overhead-cam engine.

The engine put its 30 bhp to the road through a three-speed gearbox, with no synchromesh on first.

The rounded styling was a copy of the larger 1951 Renault Fregate.

Renault had an objective for the Dauphine — export sales, and lots of them.

And so, to the USA, Australia and elsewhere it was shipped, where its competition was the VW Beetle, Austin A30, Morris Minor, Ford Prefect/Anglia and Hillman Minx.

The Americans loved it . . . at first.

Then the problems surfaced.

The Dauphine was not a car engineered for high annual mileages and 100-115 km/h freeway cruising, which US customers expected.

Oh, and then there was that pesky rust problem, something US winters exacerbated.

By late 1959 Renault’s reputation in the USA was toast, and basically has never recovered.

Meanwhile, in Australia, the situation was different.

Debuting in November, 1956, Wheels magazine was enthusiast about the Dauphine’s handling and styling.

In one strange comment, the editor’s criticised its engine for being too quiet.

He claimed it would result in over revving by “tyros”.

Go figure.

The problems experience in the USA did not appear in Australia, mostly because we did not have freeways, so speeds were lower and distances travelled much less.

In fact, the success of the Dauphine and later R8 model led to Renault to building cars in Australia at a factory in Melbourne’s West Heidelberg until 1961

Synonymous with the Dauphine are the high-performance version created by Amedeo Gordini.

He’d floated the idea in 1956 and production began a year later.