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FCP Euro Service Kits

FCP Euro Kits

I was six years old and I still remember the day.

My Dad had left the house early on a Saturday morning in his blue and white 1958 Ford Fairlane and had returned after lunch in a small black and brand new 4-door sedan, a Renault Dauphine. I don't think the Ford was working out for my folks. They had had it only for a few months. I remember the car must have been missing the rear floor mats, as my bare feet stuck to the asphalt sound-proofing on the floor in the heat of that summer. It had clear plastic covers on the seats as well so that you would stick to them like you were on fly paper. I also remember sitting along side the road a couple of times with my Dad, buried in the massive engine compartment doing something that displeased him.

But why would my Dad have traded a two year-old “long ride” for this little black thing?.

In 1960, there were few cars in our community that were not one of the Big Three. You had the odd Studebaker running around and you had one or two beatniks driving VW Beetles, but Fords, Chevs, and Dodges were as common as the surrounding corn fields. They were also all supported by the three largest business in town: the local Ford, Chevrolet, and Dodge dealerships.

Renault-Dauphine_drawing-engine-and-suspensionSo, my Dad buying a new Renault can only be explained by him wanting something new that he could afford. I say this due to the fact this car was just plain weird and certainly out of place. It was rear-engined, but unlike the VW, watercooled. A screaming 845cc, which was about 400cc less than VW, the engine drove the water pump and fan with a belt coming off a pulley on the back of the cam. The radiator sat on top of the forward-pointing 3-speed gearbox with the air drawn in from vents in the rear fenders, exiting the rear of the car through louvers in the rear panel. A belt on the other end of the engine drove the generator. The wheels only had three lug nuts each and the spare was missing (actually it was hidden behind a panel below the front bumper). The interior was also “missing”. It had a black metal dash with a speedometer, plastic ivory trim, large open storage bins, and nothing else. The heater was under the back seat and controlled by a manual flapper valve, so that it would fry my dangling feet when the heat was on. The door cards were equally unadorned with only a handle for the roll-up windows and a metal door pull that resembled the door pull on my grandfather's chicken coop. The seats were covered in black vinyl and the interior had a “different” smell to it. Definitely not the Big Three smell of plastic.

There was no carpet, no radio, no power anything, and not much sound insulation.

After buying a new or different car, it was a family tradition to drive over to my grandparents farm so that my grandfather could eyeball the new purchase and pass judgement. With only my mother, my dad, and myself in the car, the short drive to the farm was uneventful, slow, different, and a bit of an adventure. This was not the big Ford , you could feel the road and the car seemed to dart rather than wallow.

The real memory came when we had reached the farm and my grandfather and uncle, both well over six foot, climbed on board for a run around the country surrounding the farm. It was our version of an automotive test track, consisting of chip-and-tar one-and-a-half lane wide country tracks, where the only road hazards were the occasional pheasant or a slow-moving groundhog. The little Renault, with its 32 horsepower, struggled to gain even the 35 mph speed limit with the passenger weight of nearly 700 pounds onboard. I sat in the middle of the rear seat squeezed between my uncle and my mom, with the rear doors threatening to burst open every time we would careen around a corner. It felt like we were driving over 100 miles per hour, with the rear swing arm suspension jacking at every hump in the road.

It was terrifying, yet exciting. And all the while, my grandfather was laughing.

I bought my first car when I was 16. Now at 60, I have had 47 different cars of various marques, only one being a Big Three “domestic” product and none being French. I like what is a bit different and, I suppose, I can attribute that to my Dad's little Renault and my grandfather's laughter.

Can you recall your first ride in an imported car?

About the Author: Uilleam Ross

bill_rossUilleam (Bill) Ross is a 60 year-old retired 30-year veteran of the IT industry and a 45-year car guy. Living in Western Head, Nova Scotia, he now indulges his passions for landscape photography and cars, principally Volvos and Land Rovers.


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Written by :
Uilleam Ross

Uilleam (Bill) Ross is a 60 year-old retired 30-year veteran of the IT industry and a 45-year car guy. Living in Western Head, Nova Scotia, he now indulges his passions for landscape photography and cars, principally Volvo’s and Land Rovers.


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