Used Renault Caravelle

The French automaker Renault came up with what has been dubbed the dream car of our lives back in 1959 through 1968. This was the Renault Caravelle. During the time of the Caravelle’s conception, Americans were already starting to embrace European cars that are smaller and way sportier. The Caravelle, however, did not start out quite well. But this did not dampen the spirits of the French auto guru and soon after its release, it became consistently known as the very first jetliner built by the French. During the whole time of the production stint, Renault never made a secret of the fact that this dream car was built using the Dauphine platform. Its chassis, for instance, comes with a 4-cylinder engine that revs very high – at least during its time – rack and pinion steering, as well as suspension that is fully independent. As a standard, the threshed manual gearbox while optional features include a 4-speed gearbox and the automatic Ferlec electromagnetic clutch at 3-speed. The styling of the Caravelle can be described in one word – memorable. There are even other car brands and models that decided to copy a particular feature or even several features off the used Renault Caravelle. The 1961 Amphicar, for starters, copied the overall design, although the Amphicar folks do beg to differ. The folks behind MGB even went out to use the Caravelle’s headlights that are scooped out in form. At the time, European car gurus believed that the only way to go is for cars to have rear engines, and this does not exempt the Caravelle at all. 40/60 front/rear weight distribution is something you can expect from the Caravelle, however, it does tend to oversteer quite viciously at times. You can easily observe this when you take those tight corners. A new suspension system incorporated in the Caravelle gives varied flexibility of the springs. This varied flexibility depends on the load that the car has to deal with though. Whatever the Caravelle may have lacked in terms of spirit, it was able to compensate with flying colors through style. Evident crisp lines outline the body of the Caravelle, with peaked rear fenders running forward towards the scooped headlights. The Caravelle’s undercut nose is strongly indicative of an aquatic theme that is welcomed by both fans and critics. Over the years, the Caravelle did get a lot of changes and all of these worked very well for this dream car. This is the primary reason why the Caravelle remains quite the hot memorabilia item.