LeCar – Renault Renaissance?
Back in the 1970’s Renault decided to import its smallest car offering in the United States, the Renault 5. To put some modern perspective, that car was within tenths of an inch of the length of the US-spec 2012 FIAT 500. Some marketing folks must have recognized that very few cars in America were sold without actual names, so rather than dub the car ‘5’, Renault decided to give the subcompact car half a name: LeCar.
LeCar, of course, means ‘the car’ in French. Americans got the point and the car was offered from 1976 through 1983 in the US. Now rumors have begun circulating that Renault may be considering joining the retro-mini-car craze initiated by BMW’s Mini Cooper and FIAT’s 500. What would such a vehicle look like? We can only speculate, so we put our automotive speculations to pen and paper, and developed the rendering below. What do you think? Would American’s forget the reasons that Renault left the United States and put their hard earned money down on a vehicle now remembered as the car George Costanza got fast talked into. “Get out of LeCar, LeGeorge!”
