CarBrandLogos archive · Renault · 1946

Renault4CV

Designed in secret under occupation, it put post-war France on four wheels.

Photo: Berthold Werner · CC BY-SA 3.0

The story

A defining chapter in Renault history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Renault 4CV, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Work started in 1941, in a factory building trucks for the German occupier, and without the knowledge of Louis Renault, who wanted nothing to do with a small car. Fernand Picard and a small group of engineers developed it after hours. By the time it reached production in August 1947 Renault had been nationalised, Louis Renault had died in prison awaiting trial for collaboration, and the state-appointed head of the firm, Pierre Lefaucheux, had staked the company on this one model.

Renault4CV-rear · Brian Snelson · CC BY 2.0

Design and engineering

The layout was conventional for its moment and radical for its size: a 747cc water-cooled four hung out behind the rear axle, three-speed gearbox, and four doors on a car barely over three and a half metres long. Four doors mattered. A working family could get in and out of the back without folding a seat, which is why the 4CV outsold the technically cleverer cars around it.

Renault4, Museo de la Ciencia · Wiki-taller · CC BY-SA 3.0

In production

Early cars were painted in a sandy yellow left over from German military stocks, which earned the model its lasting French nickname, the pat of butter. Assembly spread far beyond Billancourt, to Belgium, Ireland, Spain, Australia, Israel and Japan, where Hino built it under licence and learned how to make cars from it.

Renault 4 CV 13-55-18 · Berthold Werner · CC BY-SA 3.0

Legacy

When production ended in July 1961 more than a million had been built, the first French car to pass that mark. The Dauphine had already taken over as Renault's volume seller, and the Renault 4 would soon supersede both. What the 4CV had done was more fundamental: it turned a nationalised, half-ruined truck maker into a company that sold cars to ordinary people, and set the pattern of cheap, practical, four-door Renaults for the next forty years.

At a glance

The facts that define it.

Units built

1,105,543

Engine

747 cc Renault Billancourt engine

Designer

Fernand Picard

Body

4-door saloon

Technical specification

The 4CV, in detail.

Production: August 1947 – July 1961; 1,105,543 produced
Class: Small car (B)
Body style: 4-door saloon; 4-door cabriolet; 4-door panel van
Layout: RR layout
Engine: 747 cc Renault Billancourt engine; Billancourt Straight-four engine; I4 ; 760 cc Billancourt I4
Transmission: 3-speed manual
Designer: Fernand Picard
Assembly: France: Boulogne-Billancourt; Billancourt; Australia: Sydney; Belgium: Haren, Belgium; Haren-Vilvoorde (Vilvoorde Renault Factory; RIB); Ireland: Dublin; Israel: Nesher (Kaiser-Frazer); Japan: Hino-shi (Hino Motors); Spa
Manufacturer: Renault