1957 Renault Dauphine

first round of modifying ie chopping the suspension 

It’s one of my all time favourite cars. This one in particular. Very clever move to get somebody else to do the structural work,even if it did mean selling it and buying it back 😊 I was gutted when you sold it, but did get the feeling that you were pretty much overwhelmed at the time with what structural repairs needed doing to it 😊

There's a big jump in the story going on here but if anyone fancies a full read it can be found here turborenault.co.uk/threads/the-1957-dope-dauphine.40186/

Would take me weeks trying to get the full thread ported across to here sorry. 

So on the 24th of Feb funds were sent across to buy the car back, and insurance sorted on the 27th through Lancaster, they have insured all my classics over the years and have been really good to me. £104 fully comp, sdp+c with windscreen cover (they assure me they will get one if needed or have to have it made) limited millage, suspension changes listed as a modification.


I decided to do the most normal thing and try driving a 1957 dauphine 130 miles home from where it lived. 845cc and 3 speed gearbox on the motorway, what could go wrong?...

"So today was the day i was to collect the Dope, @jezer101 was to be my co pilot. I picked Jez up at about 8.30 and we headed on our way. The weather wasn't pretty but metoffice had promised me sunshine for the middle of the day both up north and back home. Winner winner.

The gentle drive up to Warrington to collect the car was pretty uneventful, 3 stops on the way before arriving at the unit where she was kept. A brief walk around the car and a quick drive to the petrol station to familiarise me with the car was done then the paperwork signed.



We hit the road in what has to be the slowest car i have ever driven 🙈 0-60 is times in minutes if it actually gets there. Urgh this was going to be a long drive home. A slight incline in the road will see the cruising 60mph drop to 45mph as i was trading places up and down the slow lane with lorry's. I think there might be a slight ignition fault as a few times i felt it limit itself and struggle to get past 50. Then the snow hit, Donut dipping me it got cold. No heater, no door seals, snow coming down heavy from nowhere and i had to crack the window to stop the windscreen fogging up. Where was my mid day sunshine ffs. Anyway we soldiered on, the sunshine broke through briefly but the heavens again opened about half hour from home. The single speed wipers that dont touch the windows very well doing their best to give me some visibility.



I rocked up home after a single brief stop for fuel (gauge isnt too accurate) 130 miles later, more than a little broken from driving a heavily lowered 63 year old Renault with next to no front suspension travel with a huge smile on my face and no feeling in my toes. Im so stoked ive got this heap back. 1 day off 4 years of the original UK registration date from the first time i owned her. One hell of a cool car that got plenty of thumbs up and funny looks on the way home. Cant wait to use her and sprinkle her with a little Adeyspec magic. Ive got to gain back a few more HP to make it more user friendly. I dont think many of the original 27 horses are still in the stable."

I did add loads of pics showing more but they are too big for the site?

I have a friend, he has a dyno in his garage, so we did run the dope to see what it was doing. 41hp there so all good, and considering the car originally had a lethargic 27bhp its quite spritely. In my head i wanted more and with the car weighing 620kgs id love 62bhp for that rounded off 100bhp per tonne.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6Hyj0vpsQY&t=3s

@peteh1969 the whole intake was always temporary and it cant go anywhere so not too fussed. That said the first part of the next stage turned up today.....

Hopefully it gives a few more ponies and a lovely sound, ive found a french site where they list different jetting's for the engines in the back of renault 8's so i have a base to work from when rebuilding it. Im also looking to sort a camshaft and possibly an exhaust manifold at the same time just make it worthwhile. But yeah will be back on the dyno for final tune and setup

If its not raining and i will be driving mostly in daylight ive been using the car as much as possible. One of the chaps i work with is into his old vauxhalls so we both drove into work today. Hes just got it on the road, hes also got a cool drag hatch version of one too with some sort of v8 in it. Turns out a fair few people at work have some old cars so we think we will be having drive into work days soon The dope performed faultlessly as always and im really loving using it. Missing certain things, like a heater and music but spotify and a headphone have cured one of my issues. Future plans are to sort both issues.

I don't think he really does the "internet" tbh. 

but here's a pic of his golden griffin. You can find him "Matthew Griffiths" on FB where he uploaded pics of the build.

Now this I like 
Definitely look good when dropped. As most things do. 
One I found on the net. Convince me this isn't cool😁