That looks like a solid example. I enjoy seeing quirky cars like that

They were big in Quebec and the Gaspe'. I've come across many shots from the area with these cars in them. Loyalty to the motherland?

1973 Gaspe, Renault 8?

 

I was at a service station (remember those!) in the mid 70s and they had one of those Renaults on the hoist. It was an automatic and the owner said sometimes it made a grinding noise when driving. The car was running up in the air and the apprentice put it in drive and accelerated the car. Well under it we watched and there was a big vacuum actuator on the clutch and the car shifted itself. I cant remember how it all worked but it seemed to me at the time quite a bit of engineering to make this manual trans drive like an automatic. The problem apparently was some worn bushings on the linkage and it was repaired.

Paul

I have a vivid memory of the Renault 10. If you have a weak stomach you might want to move along as it gets pretty graphic.

I was working to pay my school bills back in the early 80's by driving a wrecker on the southwest corner of the province of quebec. My territory was rural and one early morning on a bitter cold but sunny January 1980 day I picked up a police call on my scanner about a two car crash reported by a farmer. I got there well ahead of the police and as I approached the site I saw a mid-70's Pontiac Grand Prix (74-77) pulled over on the edge of the road (if you know rural quebec you know how these rural farm roads have scary deep ditches very close to the edge of the road). Despite being midwinter there was no snow and the road was clean and dry other than a coating of dried salt dust.

As I approached the GP from the back I noticed that the car was running with lots of puffy white smoke coming from the tailpipes. Also I could see through the glass that the hood was folded up and steam was escaping from the hood area. I parked behind the GP and as I approached the drivers door the guy got out (he had kept it running to keep warm) and he was wearing a coat and a suit, he had taken off his tie to stop the bleeding on the gash of his head. He says his head hit the steering wheel rim and other than being in shock he seemed ok (he wasn't wearing his seatbelt). I walked him to my truck so he could stay warm. I asked him what happened, he said the guy coming the other way crossed into his lane and they had a head-on. I then asked him who towed the other car, he said I was the first person to arrive and pointed towards the ditch past his car! Skid marks on the road made it obvious that there had indeed been a head on.

I walked around his car, the front end was bashed in, the engine was running but you could hear the fan hitting the rad and antifreeze was leaking everywhere. Then I looked in the ditch... There was a flattened car, unidentifiable from my vantage point. It was obviously a rear engine car as from the front bumper to the middle of the cabin was flattened like it had been hit by a freight train. The cowl-windshield area had been slammed back to the front of the rear door. All that still looked like a car was the trunk area. I can't think of a way to say this gently so here goes... the steering wheel-column was rammed into the cabin and then upwards. The steering wheel went through the roof. Impaled on it was the driver's torso. In what was left of the interior was his head and legs.

It's probably why I drive cars like Suburbans to this day. The obvious take away was one guy had a big stout car and he needed a few stitches, a new tie and a body shop to fix his car. The other guy bought a little econo car to save a few bucks a week on gas and now they were scooping his body parts into a trash bag. I towed that GP to a local bodyshop and it was back on the road a few weeks later thanks to a donor front end and a visit to the frame machine. I towed what was left of the Renault to the provincial police impound yard. I wish I could find the polaroids I took that day. When I winched the renault out of the ditch it was literally about 8" tall from the front bumper to the rear doors.

North wrote:

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I have a vivid memory of the Renault 10. If you have a weak stomach you might want to move along as it gets pretty graphic.

I was working to pay my school bills back in the early 80's by driving a wrecker on the southwest corner of the province of quebec. My territory was rural and one early morning on a bitter cold but sunny January 1980 day I picked up a police call on my scanner about a two car crash reported by a farmer. I got there well ahead of the police and as I approached the site I saw a mid-70's Pontiac Grand Prix (74-77) pulled over on the edge of the road (if you know rural quebec you know how these rural farm roads have scary deep ditches very close to the edge of the road). Despite being midwinter there was no snow and the road was clean and dry other than a coating of dried salt dust.

As I approached the GP from the back I noticed that the car was running with lots of puffy white smoke coming from the tailpipes. Also I could see through the glass that the hood was folded up and steam was escaping from the hood area. I parked behind the GP and as I approached the drivers door the guy got out (he had kept it running to keep warm) and he was wearing a coat and a suit, he had taken off his tie to stop the bleeding on the gash of his head. He says his head hit the steering wheel rim and other than being in shock he seemed ok (he wasn't wearing his seatbelt). I walked him to my truck so he could stay warm. I asked him what happened, he said the guy coming the other way crossed into his lane and they had a head-on. I then asked him who towed the other car, he said I was the first person to arrive and pointed towards the ditch past his car! Skid marks on the road made it obvious that there had indeed been a head on.

I walked around his car, the front end was bashed in, the engine was running but you could hear the fan hitting the rad and antifreeze was leaking everywhere. Then I looked in the ditch... There was a flattened car, unidentifiable from my vantage point. It was obviously a rear engine car as from the front bumper to the middle of the cabin was flattened like it had been hit by a freight train. The cowl-windshield area had been slammed back to the front of the rear door. All that still looked like a car was the trunk area. I can't think of a way to say this gently so here goes... the steering wheel-column was rammed into the cabin and then upwards. The steering wheel went through the roof. Impaled on it was the driver's torso. In what was left of the interior was his head and legs.

It's probably why I drive cars like Suburbans to this day. The obvious take away was one guy had a big stout car and he needed a few stitches, a new tie and a body shop to fix his car. The other guy bought a little econo car to save a few bucks a week on gas and now they were scooping his body parts into a trash bag. I towed that GP to a local bodyshop and it was back on the road a few weeks later thanks to a donor front end and a visit to the frame machine. I towed what was left of the Renault to the provincial police impound yard. I wish I could find the polaroids I took that day. When I winched the renault out of the ditch it was literally about 8" tall from the front bumper to the rear doors.

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 Quite the story, and a good explanation on why today's vehicles have the safety standards that have been brought about over the years (which usually happened reactively due to real world experiences such as this).  Size wasn't everything, it is all about physics, and in your case the heavier vehicle won out.  In some cases, vehicle size doesn't guarantee safety - unfortunately many years ago my family happened upon an accident scene from a head on crash between an early 1970s full size Olds and a service truck from a welding company.  From what I heard the Olds, which was speeding and full of young people, had crossed the centre line and collided head on with the pickup.  Multiple deaths resulted.  The engine of the Olds was driven into the interior of the car from the force of the collision, resulting in the front seat occupants being killed, and the welding gear had collided with the back of the pickup cab, causing the occupants to suffer collisions from both ends.  It was a grisly scene.

Unfortunately, those fifties and sixties cars that we all have affection for can be death traps, to be honest.  When you consider that such things as seat/shoulder belts, dual chamber braking systems, collapsible steering columns, etc., weren't mandated until the mid to late 1960s, it can really make one think about how they drive their vintage car.  Much of the reason today's cars and trucks weigh quite a bit more than an equivalently-sized car/truck from the 1950s/60s is the increased safety of today's cars.  Body structures have come a long way in terms of stiffness and how they deform in a collision, and then there's the extraneous equipment that they must have.  It's chilling when you think that most of those features found their way into cars due to thousands of deaths of people in accident situations, and in some cases government mandates in reaction to those deaths.

Back to topic, the Renault is kind of neat - I wasn't aware that they were built in Canada.

On the east coast, in Halifax/Dartmouth NS, they did build Volvos (assembled kits, basically to avoid tariffs) in three different locations from the 1960s through the 1990s.

The first factory was a converted sugar plant, and production started in 1963.

https://museumofindustry.novascotia.ca/collections-research/automobiles/volvo-canadian

When the first Volvo rolled off the assembly line at the newly opened Dartmouth plant in 1963, the last screw was tightened by Prince Bertil of Sweden using a ceremonial gold-plated screwdriver.

The opening of the plant, Volvo's first outside Sweden, was greeted with much fanfare by the both the local and national media. It was a victory for Industrial Estates Limited (IEL), a provincial crown corporation set up in 1958 to attract more manufacturing businesses to Nova Scotia.

Volvo was looking for a chance for greater access to the North American market and with the attractive incentives offered by IEL, Nova Scotia presented an offer too good to refuse. They were given a deal that allowed them to bring in the parts duty free.

The car on display at the Museum of Industry is a special edition called "The Canadian" to appeal to its newly adopted market. It is a B-18 model four-door sedan with a red interior. It was given to Nova Scotia's Trade and Industry minister who drove it as his official government vehicle for several years. It was donated to the Nova Scotia Museum in 1967.

In 1991 it was restored by Volvo technicians working with Museum of Industry staff.

The original Nova Scotia Volvo factory was set up in an old former sugar refinery on the Dartmouth waterfront, Four years later they moved to a larger facility in Halifax and then, decades later, to a state of the art plant at Bayers Lake Industrial Park, Halifax. The new factory had the capacity to produce 8000 cars a year and employed 200 workers. Parts from Sweden were shipped to Halifax via container ship. The cars were transported to markets in the US and Canada. The plant closed in 1998. due to Volvo's excess manufacturing capacity internationally.

As a side note, there are a number of Volvo bodies at the bottom of Halifax harbour, said to have fallen off, or been dumped from, a ship in storm conditions and never recovered.  They still exist to this day.

http://bedfordbasin.ca/halifaxharbour/human_effects-eng.php#automobiles

Those Volvo's were bulletproof and have quite a following. There's one on display at the Museum of Industry in Stellarton. BTW If you are ever in the Stellarton, NS area visiting that museum is a must.

My public school art teacher (whom I really, really liked) died in one of these ... her life was cut too short and it was a very sad day at our school. Her family is messed up til this very day.

I was aware of the Volvo assembly in Canada but I had completely forgotten about the Renault. It appears from these stories that they were dangerous cars. 

I think I only ever saw one real one and it might have been older than the ones pictured here. 

When I was young my father managed a service department for one of the big Canadian brands. One day he had to test drive a rear engined Renault. My memory of it is a little foggy but as I recall he drove it home for lunch with the engine cover removed, something to do with whatever work they were doing on it.

It is not a car that I aspire to but it was interesting and different from everything else on the road in my city at that time.