In the late 1950s, Pierre Dreyfus, head of Renault, was vacationing in Florida. He noticed the popularity of the VW Beetle and its sister, the Karmann Ghia. Meanwhile, Renault dealers were begging for a car with a sporty demeanor to compete with the flood of convertibles available. While Renault was selling the Dauphine in the US, it was a dumpling of a car and not associated with fun. Advice taken: Dreyfus blessed a convertible designed at Carrozzeria Ghia – the same stylists responsible for the Karmann Ghia. It is unclear whether Virgil Exner or Pietro Frua was responsible for the prototype; both were associated with Ghia at the time. The Dauphine floor pan was recycled to make the Caravelle (called the Floride in other countries), though the overhang made the new car longer. It sat lower, too, and came with both a hard top and a soft top. Introduced at the 1958 Paris Motor Show, the early Caravelle shared the Dauphine’s 845 cc water-cooled, four-cylinder, rear-mounted engine, and a three-speed transmission. Initial orders were encouraging but as we will see, all was not well. Here on eBay is a Renault Caravelle – the year is not listed in the ad – with an asking price of $8500. The car is being sold for parts or as a project and needs to be collected from Adolphus, Kentucky. We have Jonny C. to thank for this tip!
Motors gradually increased in size during the ten-year production run for the Caravelle, from 845 cc to 956 cc and finally in 1964, an 1108 cc version. These were equipped with a single Solex carburetor until the largest motor was introduced with a Weber. Horsepower ran from about 37 to 58. With most of the weight in the rear and swing axle suspension, the cars had a wicked tendency to oversteer. This is an early car, when the radiator was next to the cockpit wall. Later cars reversed the relationship so the radiator sat out by the edge of the trunk, vastly improving serviceability. No word from our seller whether this one runs, but since the car is advertised as “not working” we can guess that answer.
Other than driving issues, the Caravelle’s original body was not very stout. Flex caused issues with doors and their latches. Frame rust exacerbates the problem. In 1963, Renault placed the Caravelle onto the R8 chassis and reinforced its unibody. The cars also received disc brakes all around. Unfortunately, Renault had lost “first mover” advantage to many other makes, so sales in the US were somewhat sluggish.
Limited photos and an even more limited description will force a call to the seller to find out exactly what’s available with this car. The hard top does not appear to be present, and there are no photos of the interior. The Caravelle is not a sports car, per se, but sort of a cute runabout. This seller is unrealistic about his price; perfectly usable early examples should sell in the mid-teens.
Michelle, got to tell ya’, you made my day. It’s pretty obvious, with enough patience, just about every car I’ve ever encountered will eventually show up here. Fascinating.
As mentioned before, my old man wouldn’t let ANY foreign cars in his driveway, with the exception of French and British. Dubja, Dubja 2 thing, you know. Anyway, he did dabble in French cars, with him seeing what the French went through first hand, I think he always felt sorry for them. And rightly so, they took a beating, from all sides. The Renault( or Renultz, as he called them) was the exception for him. My 1st car was a ’59 4CV, possibly because the old man had a couple Renaults. 2 Dauphines, a Peugeot 403, and a Caravelle just like this. I was just a kid, but already had the knowledge of what was a good car and what was a poor car. The Caravelle was a poor car. meant to compete with stuff like Spitfire, Midget, Fiat, all much better cars. Kind of a cross between a MGB and an Amphicar. I’m sure he got the Caravelle cheap, and once, we had a family friend that weighed like 450 pounds. My dad gave him a ride and it broke in half. I remember someone cobbled it together, but the doors never closed right after that. A similar fate of my MGB years later.
I wasn’t aware of the radiator thing, makes sense, they were prone to overheating, and there were so many decent roadsters, not many went for the Caravelle. Not sure what to do with this car, it’s unusual, I’ll give you that, again, for todays highways, not the best, but for short cruises, I suppose it could work. Parts may be relegated to some collector in France, but so many were made, there has to be boxes of parts. I remember, J.C. Whitney in Chicago had everything for most foreign cars. They were the only ones that had a head gasket for the 4CV. I doubt that’s true today.
Thanks again, Michelle, yet another dusty memory unearthed,,
Something conventionally engineered like a Simca, Morris Minor or Ford Anglia might have been a better choice back in the day given an “Allied products only” policy.
Yeah, you’d think so, but remember, this was Milwaukee in the 60s, and foreign cars were slim pickens, and we just didn’t see “those” makes of cars. Besides, all foreign cars to my old man, who adored BIG cars, were just “roller skates” to him, and wouldn’t be caught dead in any of them. I remember as a kid in a traffic jam once, in our Oldsmobile, people were letting cars go in front of them, not my old man. A foreign car was next, and my dad yelled out the window,,,get this,,”if you had an American car, I’d let you in, but a foreign car, you can just wait”,,,I kid you not, as the driver ( and us)slumped down,,,that was the sentiment of many then. Driving a foreign car then met some unfair situations. If you look at vintage parking lots, it seems, the VWs all parked together, in a “safety in numbers” thing, and people like my old man, really felt threatened by foreign cars and rightly so, but in classic American denial, did nothing until it was too late.
Open both doors at the same time, and you’ll need to jack the middle up to close them! These cars did not age well.
Check the pics in relation to the rear wheels when on the trailer, something has shifted big time as if the frame has gone scew wif under the body?
My Caravelle saga can be read on the website “Curbside Classic”; search Caravelle. Here’s an addendum….
I bought the car out of West Virginia for $2000 on ebay, and got it running and re-did the interior, and enjoyed it for about a year. It was cool, it was cute, but it wasn’t a real car.
So, I sold it on ebay for around $6000 to a dealer type guy in California, who shipped the car from Ohio. Several years later I was in a Sarasota classic car dealer, and lo and behold there was the car, asking price $25,000. I emailed the California guy and he told me that he took the car to Auction in Phoenix and sold it to a guy in Seattle, for $11K.
So, from West Virginia to Ohio to California to Arizona to Seattle to Sarasota, that car was well traveled, but every mile of it on a flatbed. I wonder where it is now.
Dated a pretty lady who had one of these. Drove it a couple times and it felt like a tin can though it was a good looking car. Not much of a French fan after having problems with the French sourced turbo engine in our 2011 Mini Cooper S.
I say it’s a candidate for some Porsche 911 running gear…then put a couple of 100lb bags of dirt in the front.
This thing cries out for an LS swap.
Drove a new one at a dealer in 1967 and really liked it better than the VW at the time. Couldn’t make the deal though, so never got one. Have never found a decent one since.
Too bad Pierre didn’t stay home.
Michelle nail it with the comment it was overpriced. Considering the amount of work needed on this one, the seller needs to rethink his price offering. The condition of the car and availability of parts should govern the price. For the Comment about the Simca I used to own a 58 4dr. 4cyl. Blew head gasket in it. Warped head caused the problem. Planed 30 thousands off head polished valve and valve seats and got rubber on take off in 1st & 2nd gears. Sold it to a police officer for his wife. bought it for$15. put $20. in gaskets and sold it for $100. Car overheated when I bought it fixed head gasket
drove it for six months then sold it.
Wow! Well researched essay. Yes on the oversteer, yes on the rust, yes on the body flex, yes on the radiator issues and heck yes on the price point. I owned one in high school and due to my terrible mechanical skills and the lack of robustness in the design, it didn’t last long. These were known to break in half when they got rusty. I rolled and overheated mine among many other things. All in all a good learning experience. I recently paid more for a 1:18 scale version than I paid for the actual car in 1973.
Tragedy of Louis Renault who when France was over run in 1940, backed the wrong horse and chose to build trucks for the Germans which numbered 3400+. Fast forward to liberation in 1944 and Louis was arrested as a collaborator and ignoring sound advice to skip town (or country) for a few years until passions subsided, he faced his accusers. Other collaborators blew town and came out unscathed. Louis was jailed and overseen by his arch enemies, the communists who beat him to death. Sad, sad, end for a great genius who made one terrible miscalculation.
Interesting history. I didn’t know the backstory of the founder. I remember the cars looked very unique through the 1920’s with the closed off hood. I used to see them for sale on occasion. They didn’t seem to develop much of a following.
He was imprisoned awaiting trail and was a very sick ,old (at the time) man. He was likely dying when he was imprisoned , and died before his trial . it wasn’t until 10 years later his wife claimed he was beaten to death in prison; since there was no autopsy , no one will know for sure
I’m a big fan of ’50s-’60s Italian-designed sporty 2-seaters. The Ghia styling of these is what’s great about them! Possibly penned by Virgil Exner??!! I wonder how that body would look sitting on a low-slung custom front-engine chassis?
As the “proud” owner of a rust-free Arizona Dauphine which I have rebuilt the engine, rear suspension, brakes, etc., I have both admired and cursed some of the car’s engineering details. Renault cars are interesting to say the least and one is almost assured to exclusivity at any car event–you are likely to be the only one representing this marque.
In Anthony Rhodes’ “Louis Renault: A Biography”, it is said Louis Renault, during German occupation, was visited by the German military and Daimler-Benz officials and was given a choice of either producing vehicles for the Wehrmacht or they would remove the manufacturing equipment and take it to Germany to be absorbed by Daimler-Benz. This also included his employees!
Renault was quoted as having said, “It is better to give them the butter or they’ll take the cows.”
People may say what they want about the French, but one has to give them credit where it is due. One interesting method of sabotaging the trucks they were forced to produce was to deliberately alter the engine oil dipsticks so the trucks were always a few quarts low on oil!
I did not intend for my comment to become a history lesson but instead, to help generate a bit more respect for the humble Renault marque.
We owned 2 of these in the 1970’s a 67 and a 66. Both had the later R8 R10 engines that were great little power plants. One was totaled in an accident the other was traded in on an Austin America which was a mistake. The renault was a much better car. I looked at one for sale a few years ago that had factory air! The early dauphine based ones were not that great.
About 1980 I was offered one of these for free, just needed to get it out of the back yard of a house that had been sold. The real estate agent, seeing my yellow pages listing for my old car shop, called me and said “Title’s in the glove box, come & get it!”
It was the same gold color, and on a quick inspection I could see it was complete, but had been sitting under a tarp for years. I opened the driver’s door, sat down in the seat and promptly fell thru the floor, seat and all! My assistant opened the passenger door, and trying to help me get back out, he kneeled on the seat, and that seat assembly collapsed as well. Once out of the car, we tried to close the doors. Had to lift up on both doors to get them to close.
We drove back to the shop with an empty trailer. Never saw the car again and I have always figured it was scrapped.
I am reminded of these cars every time I see a Tesla!
I’d prefer this to a Tesla any day, for some unknown reason they forgot to put gas tanks in all the Teslas, (along with a decent engine that is, not some electrikery type thing that won’t go past a power station without wanting to pull up for a couple of hours or more) !
What memories! In high school a friend of mine had one, but not for long; I never rode in it. It seemed to overheat whenever he drove it, and as he did not know much about cars never knew what eventually happened to it. Thanks!