Renault Facts
There is something about Renault. The solid build, the handsome, but understated looks. The elegant design simplicity in areas such as the air vents. The way the doors “thunk” when you close them. Let’s take a short journey through the long history of Renault, pausing here and there to consider some interesting titbits.
Renault Has Been Around More Than 120 Years
Louis Renault was the engineer and Marcel and Fernand ran the business. To prove the power of his first car, Louis made a bet that he could drive his Voiturette up the steep Rue Lepic that runs through the Montmartre in Paris. He won his bet on Christmas Eve 1898 and secured orders for twelve cars. The following year Renault was born. The first true Renault was the Type A, 1hp and a top speed of 32km/h – good enough then to win races.
More About The Many Cars Built
Groupe Renault includes Renault, Dacia, Alpine and Lada, among others. In 2019 it sold 3 753 723 vehicles – built in factories in France, Spain, Portugal, Slovenia, Russia, Morocco, India, South Korea, China, Brazil and Mexico.
Renault is part of Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, which pools resources in design and manufacture. They use a system called CMF – Common Module Family – as the basis for similar class vehicles built by the three brands. So you would get a CMF-A for example, where A stands for Affordable.
Notable Renault Models
The fastest road-going Renault ever is the Megane RS Trophy R, which broke the lap record for front-wheel-drive cars at Nurburgring with a time of 7m40.10. Its 1.8-litre produced 221kW and went from 0 to 100km/h in 5.4 seconds. The Ring spec Megane featured refinements such as carbon-ceramic brakes and aerodynamic improvements, but only 30 of this version were ever built.
Another wild Renault was the 3.0-litre V6 24V unveiled at the ’98 Paris Car Show, which led to the TWR Clio V6 Renault Sport which could go from 0 to 100km/h in 5.8 seconds and reach – for that time – a blistering 236km/h.
The Renault Range
In Europe and other parts of the world, Renault offers hybrid and plug-in hybrid options to many of its existing ICE vehicles, as well as fully electric Zoe and super-cheap Twizy, although there is some debate if the latter can be classified as a car at all. After all, even the doors are an optional extra on the diminutive Twizy.
Renault is well established in South Africa, where we have the familiar range of internal combustion vehicles: the affordable Kwid, the Triber, Captur and Koleos, the Sandero and evergreen Duster, the nippy Clio, sexy Megane and mighty Megane RS. You also get the utilitarian Kangoo and the versatile Trafic.
Where To Look At, Kick The Tyres And Test Drive Your Favourite Renault
Get in touch with your nearest Renault dealer to look at the range and book a test drive. Group1 Renault is a top-tier operation, dedicated to building long-term relationships with its clients. This means its dealers will go out of their way to make sure you get exactly what you are looking for at the best price, to make sure that when you are ready to trade in or up again, you will do so at Group1 Renault.
