Rarities
Renault is parting with more than a few of its concepts, F1 cars, and styling exercises in just a couple of weeks, as Artcurial Auctions gets ready to offer a trove of rarely seen collection pieces spanning decades.
The Renault Icons auction, scheduled for December 7, will see 180 lots ranging from F1 cars to vintage EVs to scale models of unproduced Renaults from the automaker’s own collection, in what is easily the French marque’s most compelling sale in years.
And there are seemingly options for just about every budget and amount of garage or shelf space.
So if you’ve always wanted a 1/5th scale Renault Ellypse concept car from 2002 as a centerpiece for your dining room table, such a thing could be yours with a modest €1,000 to €2,000 estimate.
For those with a larger budget and a bit more indoor space, the auction house will offer a 1983 Renault 5 police car, complete with a blue beacon. Artcurial notes that this was a car that was donated to the automaker’s collection with a few dents here and there, but had been restored to a police car appearance along with gaining new seats, dashboard, and other items.
“This Renault 5 was one of the last examples built, just before the Superfive was introduced, with its engine now transversely mounted,” the auction house notes.
With an estimate between €6,000 and €8,000, this could end up being one of the bargains from the auction. And it’s not the only Renault 5 that will be up for grabs.
Those of the electric persuasion will have not one but several options to take home an EV, including a 1985 Renault 4 F4 electric fourgonette. This small vintage van was converted to EV power in 2021 to mark the model’s 60th anniversary, with work performed by a Dutch conversion specialist EV Europe.
With a range of 62 miles, this Quatrelle featured batteries up front in place of the engine, with the motor connected directly to the original gearbox set in third gear. The left-hand side of the dash features a digital instrument screen for the EV powertrain, but the rest of the interior has been largely left alone.
With 30 hp on tap speed is not a priority, with the retro color scheme perhaps making it an appealing runabout for a small business today. The auction house estimates this electric fourgonette to fetch between €20,000 and €30,000 on auction day.
Fans of the original Twingo may be interested in a concept car from the 2006 Paris Motor Show that previewed the model that arrived in 2007 with a generally similar appearance. This concept is a handmade item, so it’s not meant for road use.
“Among the features specific to the concept car, which was intended to give the Twingo a more youthful image, were the combined windscreen and roof, made entirely from glass, the special front and rear bucket seats, the very original dashboard with an emphasis on multimedia, and a wave-like console with the gearlever lodged in a hollowed-out circle,” the auction house points out.
Being a handmade concept solely for display, the Twingo II cannot be registered and can only move around at low speeds. Hence the modest €6,000 to €10,000 estimate.
Yet another curious EV conversion is a 1982 Renault 5 GTL Roland Garros edition, with the same 30 hp on tap but a lower range of 80 kms.
The R5 R-Fit features yellow carpets and grey seats with a special blue cloth upholstery with yellow piping, while the exterior wears official tournament logos. The interior has been further customized by Renault Design staff.
“In 2022, Renault seized a double opportunity – on the one hand, its new partnership with the Roland Garros tennis tournament, and on the other, the 50th anniversary of the Renault 5 – to convert a few R5 GTLs into electric cars for use as official shuttles to transport players and members of the organizing staff,” the auction house reports.
The batteries are under the hood and an electric motor is connected to the gearbox, as this is a conversion based on a kit by specialist R-Fit. This EV is homologated for road use, Artcurial notes, so it’s still possible to enjoy this one as it was intended, with a €6,000 to €8,000 estimate likely making it one of the more frugal choices.
At the opposite end of the estimate spectrum, Artcurial plans to offer the 1983 Renault RE 40-04 Formula 1 car, driven to a third-place finish at the 1983 Italian Grand Prix by Eddie Cheever. One of seven examples built by Renault Sport, chassis RE 40-04 was assigned to Cheever for the latter half of the 1983 F1 season, seeing action in seven Grand Prix events that year.
Described as among the best Renault single-seaters of the turbo era, the car will be offered with a logbook recording each time the car saw track time, with meticulous info on its configuration and set-up, complete with drivers’ comments.
“From the logbook we can see that it began testing on 6/7 July 1983 at Zeltweg, ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix, to be held on 14 August,” Artcurial notes.
The car has now been restored by Renault, receiving a new engine in 2024. The car is finished in Alain Prost’s colors for historic demo events, being identical to the one used during the 1983 season by Prost, who saw far more success than Cheever. One of the last outings was in Goodwood earlier this year, with Prost hopping behind the wheel.
As estimate range of €500,000 to €700,000 assures that this 1983 Renault will likely end up in an exclusive collection of F1 cars.
It wouldn’t be a Renault collection auction without some truly adventurous concepts, and the Renault Deck’Up concept from 2004 is perhaps the closest one could come to a French Pontiac Aztek. The year 2004 doesn’t seem that long ago, but clearly Renault design was in a different state at the time. With the four-wheel drive model based on the Trafic van, Renault was imagining an outdoor adventure vehicle.
“Attractively finished in a mixture of grey, orange and beige, the interior has an easy-to-use modular layout, with three seats that can rotate through 180° and a central shelf on a sliding mount,” the auction house notes.
Like a number of other concept cars in the auction, this one cannot be registered for road use, which explains its modest €4,000 to €6,000 estimate.
There are some truly compelling and affordable items in this auction, like the 1/5th scale study models from the 1950s and later decades. Made out of composite materials and various other metal and plastic parts, the studies preview a number of stylistic routes taken and not taken by the automaker, with some more recognizable than others.
Some are merely styling bucks, some are wooden models intended for wind tunnel testing, while others are fairly realistic on the outside and feature intricate details and brightwork.
With estimates ranging from €1,000 to about €5,000, they present a tempting opportunity to own a piece of the automaker’s history.
Visit the auction website for the full list of lots from this upcoming sale.
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