En vous souhaitant nos meilleur voeux pour l'année 2015! Or, in other words: All best wishes for 2015 you all! Both inspired by Small Scale Sydney's French Friday post of today and Rocky Clock's Pretty Pair posts (that's been a while, right?) I give you all some old Renault 4CVs from French and Monaco Police forces.
The R4 CV is a rear-engined, rear wheel drive, four-door car manufactured from August 1947 through July 1961. It was the first French car ever to sell over a million units. The rear mounting of the engine meant that the steering could be highly geared while remaining relatively light; in the early cars, only 2¼ turns were needed from lock to lock. The 4CV was easily modified, and was used extensively as a racing car. Alpine's first car, the A106, was based on this R4CV.
The white one is am Eligor I believe. It doesn't say so on the undercarriage or on the pedestal so it's from memory only: Forgive me if I got it wrong. It's a 1/43 of course. In comparison to the red Monaco this one is the better one: Chromed details, decent tampos.
It's VW Beetle resemblance is obvious: In November 1945 the government invited Ferdinand Porsche to France to explore the possibility of relocating the Volkswagen project to France as part of the reparations package then under discussion. On 15 December 1945, Porsche found himself invited to provide Renault with advice concerning their forthcoming Renault 4CV.
The red one is a 1/43 as well, from Norev. It's supposed to be a Monégasque (or is it Monacan in English?) police car. The front is actually quite nice with that badge!
It's red and black but some of the old Monégaque policecars were red and blue: not sure why these differ or if it's correct at all. Nowadays they're mostly white.
On the back the 'Halte'-sign is a plain red one. There's even a second 'empty' sign. The white Parisian is more accurate I suppose.
Just your average 4-door beetle I suppose. One that will break down. ;-)
The Norev came in a blister package, the Eligor in a jewel case.
That's it for this week, on y va tous!