Comments on: Renault Dauphine

By: Graham Sonnenberg

Graham Sonnenberg — Tue, 29 May 2007 14:05:02 +0000

Thanks for the reply Clive. I have since acquired an original Dauphine brochure from 1960 via eBay. Very quaint and old fashioned. Out of interest, did your mother’s car have three or four gears? Climbing steep hills must have been slow in a small car with only three forward gears I amgine, though I have never driven one. I gather that it changed at some point but it still seems to have been three in 1960 and the indicator light was still on the side, which I think was also later dropped. According to the brochure, the Dauphine won several rallies in West Africa. God knows what the opponents must have been driving! Puddle jumper Ford Anglias or Fiat 600s! I take it that the Dauphine in the photgraph is not your mother’s or is it?

By: Clive

Clive — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 21:27:33 +0000

There are bound to be some, Graham – even the most unlikely cars seem to gather at least a few devotees who tend them with care over the years and preserve them for posterity. But you’re right about the unreliability as they get older; In about 1970 I bought one (probably about the same age as the one you remember) with fond memories of my mother’s car and it proved to be a real lemon – refused to start more often than not and then lost reverse gear! After that experience, I decided to listen to reason when buying secondhand cars.

By: Graham Sonnenberg

Graham Sonnenberg — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 14:35:39 +0000

I last went in a Dauphine at the age of 10 in 1970. It belonged to the mother of a friend of mine, was a green 1958 model, 3 speed. It was terribly unreliable and I loved it passionately. It was sold shortly thereafter or seized up I suspect. I have always wanted to drive one for some ridiculous reason. I wonder if there are any left on teh road in South Africa

By: Gone Away

Gone Away — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 15:11:19 +0000

I do not doubt it…