THAT'S Funny (Renault Dauphine Ad)

This ad is so funny, in so many ways, at so many levels.

The price isn't funny; using my "rough equivalency" 10:1 inflation factor, the Dauphine would be a $17,000 car today.  Without air-conditioning, automatic, or crumple zones, of course.  The gas milage claim is...funny.

As for the symbol (next to "Dauphine"at the top), I thought I remembered fleurs de lis in Renault ads, not a crown that looks like a very depressed emoticon.  Maybe he had foresight.  In the States, the Dauphine was about as successful against the V.W. Beetle as the French army was against the Germans in 1870, 1914, and 1940.

Paul Frere, the noted Belgian racer and automotive journalist, drove a Dauphine from Los Angeles to New York City in 1957.  He was doubtless on retainer from Renault; he had raced a Dauphine in the Targa Florio and the Tour de France a year earlier.  He barely got across the Rockies, with a carb jet change somewhere in the Great Basin.  In Kansas, the valves burned out.  He rebuilt the engine himself using a borrowed gas station lift, with parts expressed in from the East Coast.  In his memoir, he gives credit to the owner of the gas station for figuring out how to install new  bearings on the crankshaft of a car he had never seen before, while Paul himself concentrated on the cylinder head.  If a promotion was planned around Frere's Great American Trek, it never appeared.

In the 2000's, I have driven a good French car (the Peugeot 307), an OK one (the Renault Modus), and lousy one (the Citroen C-3).  In the early 1960's, I drove Dauphines several times.  By comparison, even allowing for 40 years of progress, the C-3 was World Class.

Thanks again to The Chicane Blog, for the image in this post.