The Renault R12 has been covered here a few times, both in its original French version as well as Dacia and Latin American variants. But did you know that at least one was raced here in the US? I took this photo – of an appropriately numbered car – at an Under 2.5 Liter SCCA TransAm race at Laguna Seca in the early ’70’s.
Great shot! I remember there being a Renault (LeCar) Cup series that I saw run several times at Road Atlanta about a decade later (mid-1980s). The interwebs are largely silent on this series, but I did find a pic of a LeCar that raced in the series. IIRC, they were completely stock except for a roll cage and open exhaust.
Ed, I had vague memory of this–but there’s not all that much info online. Evidently a LeCar series, and also an Alliance series—for which there’s a helpful Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/RenaultCup/
eBay has this publicity photo of a prepped LeCar; caption on back says that “this is a car that Renault runs with guest journalists at the wheel.”
IIIRC the R5 series was sanctioned by IMSA and ran along with their GT series. It was replaced by the Alliance series. As much as Renault had a certain sporting history in Europe, and of course with F1 starting around that time, it seemed like having one-marque series for these cars in the US was square-peg-in-round-hole marketing. But there were deep discounts on the cars for racers, and there was prize money for the winners. So it had good participation. I recall the Archer brothers dominating the classes for several years, as well as a short-lived small pickup series in which they drove Jeep Comanches.
This reminded me of Renault’s long-running one make series in the UK. I recall the 5 GT Turbo and several generations of Clio being used but according to Wikipedia it goes back to 1974 with the 5TL, and in France to 1964 with the R8. The Clio series was taken fairly seriously as a route to a works contract in the BTCC.
Obviously in the early 80s Renault had a big presence in F1. I take it you mean F1 returned to the US about that time – it started in about 1950.
What I meant was that although Renault had started F1 then, everywhere including the US, there was no other Renault competition heritage in the US then (compared to say the R8 Gordini or Alpine A110 in European series) so it wasn’t clear what market they were targeting or brand recognition they were trying to achieve with an obscure supporting series for LeCar or Alliance. Renault here was never a sporting brand, before, during or after these one-make series.
Found an Alliance racing ad in one of my earlier posts (https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/vintage-ads-and-brochures/classic-magazine-ads-and-more-road-track-december-1984/) :
“RENAULT: The one to watch” – is it just me or did Renault come up with one creepy ad here.
I wonder how successful it was? Not the first vehicle that springs to mind when you say “racecar”.
According to Racing Sports Cars, the only Renault in the 1972 Trans Am at Laguna Seca finished 7 laps off the leaders. That is one of two starts in 1972 and the only finish.
The winner was John Morton in the iconic BRE Datsun 510 #46. Second was Horst Kwech in the #3 Alfa shown in the picture.
I do recall the R12 was ssslllooowwww. If folks are interested, I can probably find a photo that I took of Morton’s winning car, as well as another BRE 510 driven by none other than NASCAR legend Bobby Allison, who could turn right, in a Japanese car, with great skill. Another car that was quite fast at that event was a Triumph Vitesse, a six cylinder version of the Herald, the upright equivalent of the GT6 to Spitfire relationship. By the way, if that R12 is a Gordini those were never imported to the US.
I like to see Bobby Allison in a Datsun! Wasn’t expecting that.
Bobby tested a Shadow Can-Am car in 1972, too. He ran the Indy 500 in 1973 and 1975. His brother Donnie was the Indy 500 rookie of the year in 1970.
Bobby and Donnie raced supermodifieds in the 60s. They’re *very* fast, especially on short tracks. Modern supers lap the Bristol NASCAR track in the 13 second range; Cup stock cars lap in the 15 second range.
Not surprising with a 1.6-ish engine in a 2.5L class! Even if most were probably 2 litres.
Great documentary of Morton’s win: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rujxd5Grxb4
More: http://www.datsunhistory.com/transam1.html
“We are having a love affair with the Automobile. We do not want to build for you a chair to ride in on your freeways. American cars are built to be sofas. The Americans take their houses with them. We race to build a better car… and we race to win races.” Yutaka Katayama to the press prior to the Laguna Seca race.
“Americans take their houses with them”. This guy has been on a camping trip with my wife.
He had a point.
If the cars are equal then it depends upon the driver’s ability to finish well. As slow as the average Le Car was I would imagine that keeping up one’s momentum would be crucial in a race; any speed lost would take a while to regain. Just mash the pedal to the floor and steer, sort of like NASCAR at Talladega but much more slowly.
That is an R12 Gordini, reckognizable at the filler cap at the LH rearwing.
It has a 1565 cc Renault R16TS engine, modified by Gordini with twin Webers, a different head and camshaft, a five speed manuel gearbox and a 18 Us gallon fuel tank.
This was the moral successor of the R8 Gordini, however although the R12 got its own race cup (like its predecessor) in rallying it was not quite successfull because it was FWD.
The R8 was, Renault chose for the Alpine A 110 for rallying, which is technically speaking a Renault R8 with rear wheel drive.
I remember the Renault 12 as being a really good imported four door sedan. My bicycle racing, acid dropping, drive-to-Cleveland-for-whatever-concert-was-on-this-week sidekick came “this close” (he actually put a deposit down, before backing off and buying a used Volvo 245 instead) one.
The negative?
In 1973-74, the Renault dealer was located in a little converted gas station with a showroom big enough to display ONE car, two service bays, an unmoved lawn, various and sundry semi-exotic (Lancia Aprilias anyone?) parts cars littered all over the property, on PA route 5, 6 miles east of Erie, PA. The owner was obviously an immigrant, spoke with a very heavy foreign accent, was both the owner, sales manager, salesman and head mechanic in a shop that had a reputation for where you took your foreign car if it was anything stranger than a Saab Sonnet (Porreco Datsun/Saab handled that end in Erie).
The place was a shithole. He maybe sold 5-10 Renaults a year. He was a decent guy to deal with, but if you were looking for the comfort of a dealership that’d be around 5-10 years from now, this sure didn’t seem like the place.
And you wonder why Renault failed in the US? I present the Erie dealer as the prime example. I left Erie in 1977, so I have no idea what happened to him after the Renault/American Motors hookup. As Erie had a good Rambler dealer when I lived there, I have no doubt he was hung out to dry.
Bought a R12 with my father’s money back in the mid 70s’ and it’s primary job was to transport my Mother to her job on a daily basis. Weekends it took myself and my friends to the bars and back.
One night, with the car fully loaded with four passengers and myself the driver, we all had a vivid near death experience with a green machine demonstrating terminal understeer, going round a left hand bend on the inside lane and existing the bend on the outside lane; three lanes over.
A friend on-board offered to get me a set of brand new Pirellis tyres the following morning; which I gratefully accepted.
No one on-board that night ever got in the car again; myself excepted!
Fantastic pic
Fun picture, but I was waiting for the quote from the driver : “It was really comfortable but we had trouble finishing races.”
I always learn something new here. I never knew there was a high performance R12, but Renault does have a long history in motor racing, which I am sure has been documented here and elsewhere.