The Dauphine was a small family sedan built by Renault in France. For a dozen years through 1967, they built two million of these gas sippers, and some of them found their way to U.S. shores. Perhaps its buyers liked the small, rear-engined VW Beetle but wanted more doors and room for the family. This 1959 edition is in great survivor condition but needs some weekend work in order to resume being roadworthy. Located in Scottsboro, Alabama, this rarity has no rust and is available here on craigslist for $4,950. A nod goes to “Zappenduster” for this nifty tip!
These cars were built and sold years before Renault would hook up with American Motors to gain a stronger foothold in the U.S. That didn’t pan out all that well, and Renault stopped selling automobiles in the U.S. once Chrysler took over control of AMC in 1987. But in its heyday, the Dauphine’s competitors, besides the Bug, were the Morris Minor and Fiat 600. The Minor still has a U.S. following among collectors. Though its engine was rear-mounted, the Dauphine’s 850-cc engine was water-cooled, not air-cooled like the VW.
I had one of these cars for a brief time back in high school when I worked part-time at a gas station. I bought one painted black like this one for $10 that wasn’t running and had no title. Why I bought it is beyond me now, but I dragged it home, and it sat for a while until someone came along and offered me $15 for it. I thought I was quite the wheeler-dealer, making a 50% profit. I assume it had the same 30 hp engine and the quasi-automatic/manual transmission that’s in the seller’s car.
Amazingly, this Renault has no rust or evidence of any having been there after 67 years. The interior is okay sans the covers on the driver’s bucket seat, and the indicated 38,000 miles could be real or not. But the little machine runs, makes no noise, and emits no smoke, and only the brakes hinder it from being more than a yard driver. Oh, and the carburetor could stand cleaning from the car mostly sitting.
If you’re looking for a vehicle that likely no one else has, how about this survivor-grade Renault? It comes with 1959 license plates from Tennessee that are supposedly transferable. Since the manufacturer hasn’t sold a car in the U.S. for nearly 40 years, I wonder what the parts supply looks like for a French econobox like this?
In 2012, I bought a Renault Caravelle, which, for all intents and purposes, is the same basic car as this Dauphine. I paid $2000, the car was pretty nice.
The brakes were inop on the little Caravelle, and there was but one guy in the country who could rebuilt the calipers, a nice Cuban chap down in Miami. That wasn’t cheap.
As for all the other parts, there was but one guy in the country that sells them, a nice chap in El Cajon dba Jacques’ Rear Engine Renault. I bought a lot of parts from Jacques. That wasn’t cheap.
I ran and used the car for a couple of years, then decided it was far too cheap and tinny to be safe, so I sold it on ebay for $6000. It ended up out in California, or so I thought. 10 years after I sold it I happened to see it in a classic car dealer in Sarasota with a $25K asking price. Putain!
When I was a toddler in the mid ‘60s, my dad had one that he drove back and forth to work at Electric Boat in Groton, CT. I still remember it had red plaid seats and its red exterior paint had faded to a shade of pink. At some point, the magnetic clutch started acting up, so he replaced it with a VW bug. The Dauphine sat in the driveway for a year or so before my dad sold it to a coworker for a princely $15.00. He took me out and bought me a new jacket with the proceeds. From what I’ve read in the ensuing 60 years, Renault sold zillions of the things worldwide. Apparently, they just weren’t built to handle American climate conditions and highway speeds, so it became a race to see whether they’d disintegrate from body rust or papier mache mechanicals first.
When I was a kid, a neighbor down the street had one just like this. He had it for years and finally got rid of it in the early 70’s for a Volvo.
I still can’t believe how many of these were sold in the US.
I found one on a small farm in Willow Creek,CA.,& told my Sister’s
Father-In-Law about it.He had a Dauphine,and the property owner
gave it to him.I had no interest in owning it,& I’ve had some real
questionable cars.
One of my memories of a Dauphine was,leaving the church
after my Sister’s wedding with one of her Brothers In Law gave me
a ride home in their Dauphine,which died at an intersection,&
remember pushing it while dressed up in a tuxedo.
Well, well, BFs is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get. Mama Gump was on to something. The Reneau, or “Renultz”, like the old man called them. While the French are usually unfairly picked on, in the early 60s, they led the econobox movement, it was years away and nobody really cared. We had hemi dual quad monsters, and imported economy cars were unheard of. Only a few made it, Fiat, VW, Opel, and Renault were about the only choices. Asian cars were still these “motorized rickshaws”, of no particular concern, but the Renault was a real car. Had 4 doors, a real heater, kind of, and were very dependable little cars. Seems everybody knew someone with a Dauphine. The old man had one, a neighbor had one. At about $1400 new, it undercut the then cheapest car in the US( a VW at $1529) by almost $100, and was twice the car. The French nailed it. Sales weren’t robust, but over 200,000 sold in the US alone, 1959 the best year with 102,000 cars sold new. ’60-’66, sales dropped off dramatically, because “you know who” was just gaining steam, the poor Dauphine didn’t have a prayer. A while back, Jay Leno interviewed a man at Pebble Beach with a Dauphine. It was so out of place, it garnered more attention than the full classics. Go figure. Great find!! My dad would be proud, I think having gone through the war and seeing what the French put up with, he always felt sorry for them. This, a Caravelle, a Peugeot 403 and a Triumph Herald were the only foreign cars he ever had.
I’ve asked this before and always fun, does anyone know where the spare tire is located? It should also be noted, 1959, Henney Kilowatt made the 1st modern postwar EV with one. It was not well received, with only 47 cars sold. I believe the range of about 4 blocks didn’t help. If this was closer, I’d consider it, but I’m a bit cautious with the automatic clutch business, anyone familiar with those?
I know where the spare is…..do I get a prize? Under the front trunk (frunk?), reachable by lowering the trap behind the license plate, actually very clever: no need to remove the luggage, it also acts as extra protection in case of front end collision.slightly sooped up versions still race in hillside races, great little cars at the time.
The Dauphine’s spare tire is located in a compartment below the luggage compartment with a drop down door beneath the front bumper. You first open the luggage compartment. Then there’s a pull handle near the rear of the left headlight (IIRC) which you pull upward. That releases the door to extract the spare tire.
Back in the 1970s a neighbor had owned a ’62 and a ’65 Dauphine. I learned a lot about vehicle maintenance and repair by helping him with those cars. And, the ’60 Vauxhall Victor I owned gave much wrenching insight and helped teach me to keep calm when working on cars.
The spare tire is stored horizontally under the front floor/nose, ahead of the front axle. It is hidden behind a pivoting access panel/door located right a) beneath the front bumper and b) behind license plate.
I believe it was over the engine. Aunt Lil had a new 57. Her and Gram took many road trips.
Not much info on the internet about the magnetic clutch but what there is tends to point to big headaches with this device. I had a couple of Dauphines and they were cute cars but I would stay away from one with this unit.
Oh no…….60+ year old nightmares are coming back! When I was little we had a baby-sitter Mrs. Feeny. She drove one identical to this and probably the same year. It burned oil something fierce, and rode like a grocery cart! I have a vivid memory of a horribly hot, humid summer day—no breeze at all when she lumbered over to our house to watch us kids. The blue smoke from that Dauphine hung in the air like a plague when she shut it off. I think it even left a nasty oil stain on the driveway. It’s funny what we remember from our childhood. Good AND bad!
“Perhaps its buyers liked the small, rear-engined VW Beetle but wanted more doors and room for the family. ”
I can add another reason: My mother had one of these in the late 50’s; her first new car. WWII was still pretty fresh in my parents’ minds and they didn’t want to buy a German car. She had it for a few years and then traded it in on a first generation Corvair.
My dad was always frugal. We had friends that had an old fashioned Beach/Dune Buggy like they used to run at Pismo. We were in Victorville, CA. He had a truck but wanted my mom and three kids to come along to the desert. He got the Renault somewhere…probably one of his frugal engineer co workers. He radiused the rear fenders and split the rim and widened it to take a much wider tire. It looked crazy. We took it to the desert and discovered it only had enough power to pull him and my 5 year old little brother up even the gentlest hill. My mom, sister, and I had to walk up. He sold it and bought a turquoise Bronco with cloth top. Does a 289 sound right? Wish I still had both. Good times.
Was Mom’s new commuter car in W. Covina, CA, 1960. Was a real contest to merge onto freeways. Lasted 3 years when oil blew out its butt on Kellogg Hill, Pomona.
La vache, est-ce que ça peut rouiller, ces trucs !
Après quelques années, il ne resterait plus assez de métal pour fabriquer une lame de rasoir. ;)
C’est pourquoi il faut en trouver un en Californie (pour la qualité de la tôle) et un deuxième sur la côte Est (pour un bel intérieur).
Never much cared for these until I saw a custom built one called La Brute, built by Justin Cashmore, Google it, it’s a Dauphine on steroids.
I too had one of these for a short time when I was in high school. My father’s cousin took a 1959 with a rusted body and a 1960 with a bad engine and somehow made a running car out of the two of them. Being a teenager with lots of angst I beat the crap out of the poor thing. Three months later I stopped at a stop sign and that was it. Seems the timing belt had snapped. And that was the end of that.
My dad and grandfather bought two at the same time. Dad and G’pa were notoriously cheap. Retread tires on lousy cars all my life. Back in the 60’s, every other weekend, they would waste a beautiful day working on the Dalphines. But I learned how to drive a stick at 5 years old, sitting on dad’s lap.
Hello everyone,
be loved father in law Neil Woerner, was from Memphis Tennessee, he bought in the end of the 50’s a Dauphine, he was proud to have a French car, he had a business in Air Conditioning, he was happy to drive downtown with this little car, all his friend was joking about him. Years later he had a bike shop in Key West where he mates my French mother, he married her and he has a wisch, to live in France and to buy a Citroën 2 CV, he did it!
wow my first car was a 59 sixty years ago at the age of 13. Bought it for 20 bucks, good runner, dark blue, interior sucked. Bought a second one with a thrown rod but great interior. Swapped out the interiors and had a great car. Took the rod out of the bad motor thru the large hole in the block, cut the rod off so it wouldn’t hit the block and reinstalled it on the crank to save oil pressure, covered the hole with sheet metal and epoxy and drove that little 3 cylinder all around the farm and fields. cool memories with too many stories to share here
I never had a Dauphine, but I had a 60 something R8 based on the Dauphine platform. It was actually a fun little car, although you had to sit sort of side saddle in it with the pedals rather far to the right. I once had to replace the clutch and my Haynes manual said that there was only one service that could be performed without removing the transmission/engine from the car (or actually removing the car from the engine/transmission with a come along and a sturdy oak limb in my case) and that service was changing the shift knob.
My first car, as a senior in high school was a black 59. My twin brother and I bought it together for $50 if I remember correctly. We grew up in SF and it had no problems transporting us over hill and dale. Had it for two years and when college beckoned, we sold it to get our own rides. He bought a brand new Renault 10 while I began a life long love of Ford Cortinas with my used 66 Mk1 GT.
I remember they have 3 lug wheels 🙈😮
The wheel lug wrench was a crank handle that removed the bolt in the center of the wheel cover and raised and lowered the jack. The crank handle also fit through a slot in the car’s tail panel and engaged with the crankshaft pulley so you could start the car if the battery was dead.
While French automotive engineering is often scorned and ridiculed they actually had some practical and ingenious ideas.
I just remembered this story:
An old drinking buddy of mine, Joe T., (now deceased) graduated high school in Columbus in 1966, and then during the Summer of Love in 1967, he decided to drive out to San Francisco in his Renault Dauphine. It must have taken 2 weeks…
One day, he was coming down a hill in SF and the brakes went out. With no way to stop the car, he intentionally sideswiped several trees on his way down the hill. That slowed the car down enough to eventually get it stopped, but alas, it was the end of the hapless Dauphine. I forget how he got home to Ohio.
Next ’60 Chevy that comes up, I have another Joe T. story involving brakes. Joe T., a Great American.
A family friend has three (!) of these at the same time back in the early 1960s. Why three? So that at any given time he had at least one that ran. I was always intrigued by the styling, though.
In 1959 Dad had graduated from Remington Rand (for those younger readers, adding machines, calculators, cash registers which were mechanical (not digital) back then) service school and was transferred to the Highland Indiana local dealer. He ran service calls all over Northern Indiana, Illinois and the Chicago area. Since they paid him mileage, he thought a high fuel economy car was the way to go. So he bought a new Dauphine. I was taught how to change the distributor cap. In case it failed when Mom was driving the car. As it was a somewhat normal occurrence. I was 6 years old and a spare was kept in the glove box. Living in the rust belt and snow country. I still remember seeing Dauphines with primer colored “spare tire drawers” since it was prone to hitting hidden parking curbs. (Snow piled up) The little cars did not hold up very well on the Northern Illinois/Indiana pot holes and rough roads. Dad noticed that the car had an odd body rattle at times. But wasn’t able to isolate it until coming to a stop and the windshield fell out onto the hood. The body had flexed enough in 60,000 miles (about 11 months) that there was no way to refit it. He drove into the dealership with the windshield resting on the passenger seat and sticking out the hole normally where the windshield would reside. The service department grabbed the dealer principal and he said that the car shouldn’t do that and gave Dad a new 1960 model for very cheap. (I think about $500) The “new one” started having the same issue at close to the same mileage. He traded it for Plymouth. He made good money on his mileage allotment so he wasn’t particularly upset.
When I was 12 a friend gave me a 1959? Renault 4CV with the 3 speed electric clutch. The car had 2 voltage regulators. 1 for battery charging and 1 for operating the clutch. The clutch would disengage when the voltage/engine speed dropped OR when you grabbed the gearshift lever. It had just so happened that the week before Dad had showed me how to adjust a voltage regulator. So diving into the broken shift voltage regulator (the reason why I was given the car as a new one was approx. $65 which was the value of the car) was not scary. The one magnetic coil that controlled the ” easy clutch engagement” was bad. But the one that disengaged the clutch with the shift lever worked fine. So since the only place for me to drive the car was dirt and gravel. I bent the tab over to keep the “easy engagement” portion always engaged. And just revved the engine and let the shifter go which always resulted in tire spinning launches. Dad thought that was an ok modification. Until he realized that I had rolled the car a, couple of times. (Very rounded roof rolled into a very thick thicket made rolling it over back on its wheels by myself fairly easy!
Do I hear $50.00?
I always liked the looks of these, and those with the normal clutches were decent cars, for a while anyway. By the time I was driving in 1971, these were $100 cars that were not known for reliability. I’d still be interested in buying the right one, but not this one.
A while back I saw a picture of one of these that had been converted into a drag car, more specifically a gasser. It had an unknown brand to me differential. A straight axle and a tweaked Ford 300 6 cylinder for motivation. It was supposed to have been a semi-serious contender in the class it ran in.
I believe the spare was over the engine. Aunt Lil had a new 57. Her and Gram took many road trips.
1959 and newer the spare tire was in a drawer under the front bumper. EASILY DAMAGED!
this was one or 2 of the renault model ‘mommie cars’ used for shopping and kid bus. So old it had semaphores. I forget the order but Simca 1000 (“Get Smart” car) & Renault 10
http://www.simoncars.co.uk/renault/renault10.html
were other cars in the shuffle toward fiats’n a lancia for her (the 850, EXP, 124 sedan, more). I still like smaller cars (esp wagons)…
There’s a punk Spanish song:
How hard is making love inside a Simca 1000!
1959 and newer the spare tire was in a drawer under the front bumper. EASILY DAMAGED!
The Renault Dauphine (Dolphin) round nose acted as an airfoil at high speeds, generating lift that made steering impossible, the car was called ‘Widow maker’.
Some addressed this issue with a heavy sand bag in the luggages’ place, in this rear engined car, suitcases were placed under the front hood.
Gesund +
In 1959 Renault Dauphine was the #2 selling import behind the VW Beetle [#3 was the captive import Metropolitan.] By the third year in the USA RUST on a Dauphine became well known and sales slide [also, US manufactures introduced domestic compacts for 1960]. The Dauphine was assembled in many markets around the globe, including Israel! To find one with no visible rust is amazing! Judson made a supercharger for the Dauphine, which reportedly could add 50% horsepower … so maybe 45 bhp! Charming design, wonderful survivor.
I’m amazed how many guys have commented on this car (so far). So many memories! Having so much empathy, sympathy, affection, and fondness generated – it feels like everybody should have a Dauphine. Lol. (Fits in any garage corner, too!)
Ok,here’s my story……got a 1963 as a loaner for a car they were doing body and paint on. Actually started and ran great. Smooth engine and it was springtime so no need for heat. Well, day 2 the idle jet fell out, had to have the pedal down halfway to keep it alive. Drove to the body shop and they put in a new jet! Back on the road and drove it for 2 weeks with no issues. At highway speed though the front end floated! Got great
gas milage too. Honestly Ive driven worse cars.
.
in the 60,70’s they were cheap easy to find and provided transportation and us being the car guys most were found sitting with problems that we could solve and the gas station couldn’t or wouldn’t. We collectively drove them more miles than original owners.
My dad had a 1959 Renault 4CV. His next car was just like this, a 1959 Renault Dauphine in black. His next car was a 1960 Pontiac Bonneville with a 389. Can you imagine the difference in his gas mileage? However, the Bonneville was definitely my favorite.
Bonjour tout le monde,
je vous écrit depuis le sud ouest de la France, Hossegor, capitale française du Surf.
Vous parlez souvent du flottement de la direction à partir d ‘une certaine vitesse, ici pour améliorer ce problème, les Français mettaient deux sacs de ciment de 25 kilos chacun que ce soit sur les Dauphine, les R8 ou R10 et les Renault Floride, petit cabriolet aux formes élégantes, sinon effectivement c’était le flou artistique.
Pensez qu’il y avait des Dauphine Gordini tout comme les R8 qui participaient au Rally de Monte Carlo.
Merci de vos nombreux commentaires.
Allez Mundaka!