Before becoming electric, the
Renault 5
was already plugged in.
At the beginning of the 1970s, the release of the first model, assembled in the Douai factories, became an event and marked a turning point in the history of the automobile.
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Its small size, its curves, its particularly bright range of colors contrast with the so-called
“family”
cars , which are much more imposing, with square shapes, traditionally driven by the head of the family.
The R5 allows households to consider owning a second automobile for the first time.
François Mitterrand at the wheel
Easy to drive, with minimal consumption per 100 kilometers, it opens the way to a new art of living well, particularly for housewives over or under 50 years old.
The box having been designed to swallow the contents of a supermarket shopping cart, a weekly visit to the shelves thus replaces the daily market.
Young people are also seduced by his non-conformism.
At a time when the majority is going from 21 to 18 years old, they are adopting it as their
“first car”
.
At the beginning of the 1980s, it was present in one in five homes.
Thus it tells the story of an entire generation, the one which lived through the end of the Thirty Glorious Years and the beginning of the crisis.
Michel Boué, a young engineer, had certainly not imagined it when one morning, in an office of the Régie Renault, on Île Seguin, inspired by the joie de vivre of the 1960s, he had fun drawing, freehand, a
“three-door”
with plastic bumpers.
A revolution that will be copied.
It added a tailgate, quite rare at the time, and “candy”
colors
, contrasting with the traditional Renault range.
A competitor to the Fiat 127, the city car will then be exported throughout the world, making French industry and thousands of workers proud.
At the beginning of the 1980s, the Super 5 was put into circulation.
The first copy is entrusted to François Mitterrand.
In the documentary directed by Claire Perdrix, we discover him behind the wheel, entering the courtyard of the Élysée without being surrounded by a crowd of bodyguards.
An image from another time.