cooperlola Posted July 16, 2007 Share Posted July 16, 2007 Anybody ever run one? Any knowledge or experience of what they are like in terms of maintenance costs etc? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sunday Driver Posted July 16, 2007 Share Posted July 16, 2007 Back in 1967, my mate had a Dauphine. He went over a hump on a small country road and the car split in two when it landed.....[:-))] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooperlola Posted July 16, 2007 Author Share Posted July 16, 2007 Bloomin' 'eck SD! Just the kind of thing I wanted to know! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sunday Driver Posted July 16, 2007 Share Posted July 16, 2007 [img]http://www.la-renault-dauphine.com/Pictures/Received/Competition/Proto5.jpg[/img][:D] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sunday Driver Posted July 16, 2007 Share Posted July 16, 2007 This is a nice one.....[img]http://www.la-renault-dauphine.com/Pictures/Gallery/Competition/Henka01.jpg[/img] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooperlola Posted July 16, 2007 Author Share Posted July 16, 2007 Lovely! I'm vaguely contemplating getting myself a little French classic - just to potter about the lanes at the weekends, and take to concours and local meets etc. They're in my price bracket but I'm not sure about the rear engine - wrong place as far as I'm concerned but I don't really propose to fling it about a lot! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Posted July 16, 2007 Share Posted July 16, 2007 Don't forget those rear engined Skodas in the 70's (?) that used to do rather well when rallying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anton Redman Posted July 16, 2007 Share Posted July 16, 2007 Salt on UK roads and poor quality metal did for most of them in the UK. Worked on R10 major and 4Ls and provided you know how to use a torque wrench probably easier to work on and better parts than contempory Minis and 1100s. Parts availability pretty good. Seen quite a few R8 Gordinis ( or look a likes ) but cannot recall a Dauphne on the road in France. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooperlola Posted July 16, 2007 Author Share Posted July 16, 2007 Thanks, Anton. The Gordinis I've seen are about twice the price of the Dauphines, and therefore more than I want to spend on an occasional-use car. Obviously, I'd have to drive one before I took a big decision. As I'm no great shakes as a mechanic, I need to be sure my garagiste would not throw his hands up in horror when presented with one to service/fix. Next step is to ask him of course... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Posted July 16, 2007 Share Posted July 16, 2007 Better to get the 4CV, mechanically much the same layout, but lighter and less dangerous (and less prone to fall apart) You still see a few in France whereas Dauphines are very rare now. I had two, one from 1954, and then one of the last, a 1961 model that had been imported from Jersey. The best bit was that just about all the mechanical bits from the Dauphine could be bolted on, updating it somewhat. And another 100ccs, which is what the Dauphine engine had, represented quite a power increase on something that weighed just over half a ton. I replaced my second one with a 1966 Mini Cooper, which I wish I still had, and the Cooper seemed quite sedate after the little Renault. The best thing was that they are very easy indeed to work on - dropping the whole engine and transmission was a case of undoing the connections and linkages, removing about 6 bolts, and lifting the car off.[img]http://www.microcar.org/carspecs/renault4cv.jpg[/img] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooperlola Posted July 16, 2007 Author Share Posted July 16, 2007 Good thought, Will, thanks. And a friend of mine has one in his garage....btw, I love the name of the place in the background.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anton Redman Posted July 16, 2007 Share Posted July 16, 2007 To quote my late father - '"Concours is what I will do when I am dead" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patmobile Posted July 17, 2007 Share Posted July 17, 2007 I had a 1957 Dauphine in the '60s. It was a good car to drive by the standards of the day but awful in the wet. As already mentioned above they suffered from corrosion and mine was no exception.A common mechanical problem was that the camshaft was driven by a set of internal bakelite gears. These would wear down and leave you, suddenly with a mysteriously non-functioning engine. I always liked the sound of the rear mounted engine when it was running, and driving my Smart, which makes a slightly similar noise, often gives me a tingle of nostalgia.The gearchange linkage was very prone to developing slackness and play, so that it was quite easy for your hand to touch somewhere quite high up on a female passenger's thigh while "trying to find reverse". This was a most useful feature at the time.Eventually I lost it while negotiating a sharp left-hander on a wet day. I over-corrected, lost it the other way, over-corrected again, etc. until eventually I hit the wall of an unfortunately placed church. No damage to the church but the Dauphine's rusted-through front end folded up alarmingly. My suitcase, which was in the front luggage compartment, was compacted to about half its original length. Lucky it was there. It was probably the strongest, most crush-resistant component in front of my legs, and may have saved me from injury.A few years later I had the use of a company Caravelle which had originally been the MD's wife's car. It was embarrassing to be seen in it, frankly.Patrick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooperlola Posted July 17, 2007 Author Share Posted July 17, 2007 Do you think modern boots would help, Patrick? At any rate, I am being severly but off the idea, having read of several hairy prangs on this and another forum - I'll look at something else I think - the 4CV sounds a good option. I'm still at the dreaming stage at the moment... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sunday Driver Posted July 17, 2007 Share Posted July 17, 2007 This is what you really want......[img]http://agccsortie4.free.fr/Brocante2007/brocante_2007-040.jpg[/img] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onion van man Posted July 17, 2007 Share Posted July 17, 2007 That's very nice. Tim Duffee of Team Duffee Engineering actually made some replicas of them based on his Darrian T90 floor pan. I shall have to go look for the pictures I took of them in his workshop now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooperlola Posted July 17, 2007 Author Share Posted July 17, 2007 Very true SD, it is! Bank balance a minor problem though.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Avery Posted July 17, 2007 Share Posted July 17, 2007 I had one in England after the time when they had been used as minicabs on the streets of London against the black cabs. They were marvellously economical with petrol due to the very thin bodywork, if you had a dent you just pushed it out with your thumb. I bought one from an ad in the Evening News, from Hackney. I took it and girlfriend to Southend for the day, problem was every time I stopped I had to reach down and pull up the brake pedal that was jammed against the bodywork, the whole body was moving each time I braked, the best bit was I had managed to get there and back and was just turning into home street when the steering column broke in half at the joint. I took the car to the Police who said that it was just legal as the lights and brakes worked but if they had stopped me, I would be trying to convince them that it was roadworthy[:-))] I think SD must have bought it off me[Www] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooperlola Posted July 17, 2007 Author Share Posted July 17, 2007 Does that mean it was a Hackney Cab then, Ron? (Sorry.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnOther Posted July 17, 2007 Share Posted July 17, 2007 Hi Coops, just a thought http://tinyurl.com/288gtrHe can keep his number plate which makes the car under a grand then and a new MOT at least gives some idea of condition.Probably not too hard to convert to LHD, must a club and scrappies in France.To avoid some of the tedium of re-registering an ex UK car you might even be able to clone it from a genuine French scrappie [;-)] [;-)] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooperlola Posted July 17, 2007 Author Share Posted July 17, 2007 Ooh, you naughty boy, Ernie![;-)]I actually found a nice one for 4,000 euros here, just restored (all bills etc). But the info' I'm getting is beginning to put me off a bit... (As a matter of academic interest, the Alpine I saw in simlar condition was 50k! - way out of my league.[:(]) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jc Posted July 17, 2007 Share Posted July 17, 2007 I owned a 4CV which was a good car-the Dauphine had slimmed-down steel everywhere in the body.The R8,R10 & R11 were a totally different range of cars particularly in Gordini spec. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooperlola Posted July 23, 2007 Author Share Posted July 23, 2007 Thanks to my posting this on another forum, I've been offered a Caravelle. It currently resides in the UK although it was originally imported from France and is LHD. It is nearing the end of restoration and is currently on a SORN - just awaiting a re-spray. I'm going to have a look at it when I'm in England next month. Obviously, it is a million miles from being a done deal. However, is there a point in having it it MOT'd in the UK, or is it better to trailer it back here with a certificate of permanent export and just go through the French registration process once (if) I bring it over?Any comments on Caravelles, while your at it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sid Posted July 23, 2007 Share Posted July 23, 2007 "A penny farthing a mile, and you travel in style,The Renault Dauphine!"(or so the cinema advert used to say!).Sid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briwy Posted July 23, 2007 Share Posted July 23, 2007 My aunt had one from new.The only thing I remember clearly about it was my father killing himself laughing when the steering wheel melted in the sun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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