Renault 4CV: Француздық көлік тарихы және құпия дизайны

Rear engined, rear wheel drive, small 4 door car
Nesher, Israel
| class = Small car
| body style = 4 door saloon car4 door cabriolet 4 door panel van is a car produced by the French company Renault from August 1947 through July 1961. CV is the abbreviation of chevaux vapeur, the French equivalent to "horsepower" as a unit of power. The name 4CV thus refers to the car's tax horsepower.

The 4CV was originally conceived and designed covertly by Renault engineers during the World War II German occupation of France, when the manufacturer was under strict orders to design and produce only commercial and military vehicles. Between 1941 and 1944 Renault was placed under the technical directorship of a francophile engineer, Wilhelm von Urach (between 1927 and 1940 employed by Daimler Benz) who failed to notice the small car project emerging on his watch. A design team led by the company's technical director, Fernand Picard, recently returned from Renault's aero engine division to the auto business Jean Auguste Riolfo, head of the test department, was made aware of the project from an early stage as were several other heads of department. On 15 December 1945, Porsche found himself invited to provide Renault with advice concerning their forthcoming Renault 4CV. Earlier that year, after the death in suspicious circumstances of Louis Renault, newly nationalised Renault had officially acquired a new boss, the former resistance hero Pierre Lefaucheux, who had been acting administrator since September 1944. He had been arrested by the Gestapo in June 1944, and deported to Buchenwald concentration camp. The Gestapo transferred him to Metz for interrogation, but the city was deserted because of the advancing allied front; the Germans abandoned their prisoner. Lefaucheux was enraged that anyone should think the by now almost production ready Renault 4CV was in any way inspired by the Volkswagen, and even more enraged that the politicians should presume to send Porsche to provide advice on it. The government insisted on nine meetings involving Porsche which took place in rapid succession. Lefaucheux insisted that the meetings would have absolutely no influence on the design of the Renault 4CV, and Porsche cautiously went on record with the view that the car would be ready for large scale production in a year. Lefaucheux was a man with contacts. As soon as the 4CV project meetings mandated by the politicians had taken place, Porsche was arrested in connection with war crimes allegations involving the use of forced labour including French in the Volkswagen plant in Germany. Porsche was accompanied on his visit to the Renault plant by his son Ferry, and the two were offered release in return for a substantial cash payment. Porsche was able to provide only half of the amount demanded, with the result that Ferry Porsche was sent back to Germany, while Ferdinand Porsche, despite never facing any sort of trial, spent the next twenty months in a Dijon jail. The first prototype had only two doors and was completed in 1942, and two more prototypes were produced in the following three years. Later Pierre Lefaucheux, appointed to the top job at Renault early in 1945, tested the 4CV prototype at Louis Renault's Herqueville estate.

In 1940, Louis Renault had, according to one source, directed his engineering team to "make him a car like the Germans'." The transfer machines were high performance work tools designed to machine engine blocks. While imprisoned during World War II, Bézier developed and improved on the automatic machine principle, introduced before the war by General Motors (GM). The new transfer station with multiple workstations and electromagnetic heads (antecedents to robots), enabled different operations on a single part to be consecutively performed by transferring the part from one station to another.

The 4CV was ultimately presented to the public and media at the 1946 Paris Motor Show and went on sale a year later. Volume production was said to have commenced at the company's Billancourt plant a few weeks before the Paris Motor Show of October 1947, although the cars were in very short supply for the next year or so. On the 4CV's launch, it was nicknamed "La motte de beurre" (the lump of butter); this was due to the combination of its shape and the fact that early deliveries all used surplus paint from the German Army vehicles of Rommel's Afrika Korps, which were a sand yellow color. Later it was known affectionately as the "quatre pattes", "four paws". The 4CV was initially powered by a 760 cc rear mounted four cylinder engine coupled to a three speed manual transmission. In 1950, the 760 cc unit was replaced by a 747 cc version The car remained in production for more than another decade. Claimed power output increased subsequently to as increased fuel octanes allowed for higher compression ratios, which along with the relatively low weight of the car which enabled the manufacturer to report a time of 38 seconds and a top speed barely under it may have made sense to try and expand the 4CV's own market coverage downwards in order to open up a clearer gap between the two models which would be produced in parallel for several years, but reaction to the down market 4 CV, branded as the "Renault 4CV Service", must have disappointed Renault as this version of the car disappeared from the Renault showrooms after less than a year. The poor sales performance of the stripped down "4CV Service" may have been linked to the growing popularity of the Citroën 2CV: although at this stage powered by an engine of just 375 cc and offering sclerotic performance, the 2CV was bigger than the Renault and in 1952 came with a starting price of just 341,870 francs. Other countries where 4CVs were assembled included Australia, Belgium, England, Ireland, Japan (where the Hino assembled cars gained a reputation for superior quality

In 1996, Renault presented a concept car — the Renault Fiftie — to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 4CV's début. It was a two door, mid engine design with styling similar to the 4CV.