Renault Caravelle S
Submitted by Dave Danielson
Like our esteemed Car Lust host, I have always had affections for vehicles outside the U.S. mainstream. One that I personally owned was a 1963 Renault Caravelle S. The Caravelle was introduced in the late 1950s as the Flouride, but sold in English speaking countries as the Caravelle until 1967. It was rear-engined, and was basically a two-seater convertible body on the running gear of its sedan mates - the Dauphine, R8 and R10 (with steadily increasing power and new bodies).
My Caravelle S was white with blue leather seats and both hard and soft tops. The 'S' was very important in that it signified 51 HP rather than a mere 48 HP, and a four-speed rather than three-speed transmission. It also had four-wheel disc brakes with funky French 3-lug wheels.
I owned this car as a newly licensed driver duing the 1973 gas crisis; it delivered 32 MPG. Since the Caravelle had just a 7 gallon tank, I would take the family Chevy Malibu to the gas station to get the allowed maximum of 10 gallons of gas (whenever the green flag came out) and then siphon the fuel over to the Caravelle.
People always said it looked like an Amphicar, but it was a beauty to me. It weighed just 1,900+ pounds, so my high school "buddies" could move it into the middle of the street during the school day as a prank. My dad had actually owned a 1959 Dauphine, so I was destined for strange tastes.
Although the Caravelle looks like a sports car - well, it has two seats and a soft top, anyway - it shared some French attributes with the Peugeot (we called them "Pigouts" in my day) recently profiled on Car Lust. 
It was "weirdly styled, horribly unreliable, slow, and possessed a combination of pillowy ride and freak-show interior ergonomics." Actually, the latter was better than most French cars as it was pretty basic.
It had a great all-tube radio that took 5 minutes to warm up. The seats were way more comfortable than any MG or Triumph, and there was no transmission hump with the rear-engine and transaxle layout. The spare tire rode in a compartment under the front end, above which was a decent size trunk. I wish I had it today.
--Dave Danielson
Chris Hafner on March 17, 2008 at 09:08 AM
I'd never heard of the Caravelle before, but you're right, Dave - it's gorgeous.
The fuel crisis was a crazy time, wasn't it? That siphoning process doesn't sound like a lot of fun.
By the way, this is a great line:
"The 'S' was very important in that it signified 51 HP rather than a mere 48 HP ..."
Cookie the Dog's Owner on March 17, 2008 at 09:39 AM
If the French built the VW Karmann Ghia, you'd get . . . well, you'd get this. Small, economical, quirky, and probably much more fun to drive than raw performance statistics would suggest.
Chris Hafner on March 17, 2008 at 09:55 AM
Oh, and I forgot to mention - the decision not to sell this car in the U.S. under the "Flouride" name was probably the right call.
steve on March 17, 2008 at 01:46 PM
Interesting....
My father also owned a Renault Dauphine that was very likely to be a 1959 model. It broke down on my parents' honeymoon.
p.s. It was "Floride" not "Flouride"
Mochi Mochi on March 18, 2008 at 04:06 AM
It's lovely - so cute !!!! This is a car with a creative vision behind it. Just makes you smile :)
Mochi Mochi on March 18, 2008 at 04:28 AM
quick rant: Why Why Why?? This car is the embodiment of dissimilitude. A beacon of individual vision unsullied by the call of conformity. Today's offerings are largely drawing on a well of similarity (with only a very few examples to the contrary) - the standard formula: soap bar corners, an impossibly high tail with minimal visibility forward and none behind. And despite what anyone tells you the drag coefficients are not appreciably lower than they were 20 years ago (1988 civic hatchback drag coefficient = 0.31). Someone somewhere please design a new car that is as beautifully strange as this Renault!!!
Emmanuel on April 06, 2008 at 01:14 AM
thanks for this blog.
In France, we love this car (Renault Floride and Caravelle)and we have fan club of this lovely car.
Do you know that the godmother of this car was Brigitte Bardot? She was is advertising icon ...
Jon Dressen on July 07, 2008 at 06:26 PM
Hi, I justed wanted to add some info/insight to the Caravelle. There is a site that has it's full history and sorry to say, for those of you who think it is so "unique"...sorry.
If you want to jump to the Caravelle part of the article, jump down to about the 8 or 9th paragraph. The name Floride would have been a good name for the car since the inspiration to build it came from a trip by the owners of Renault to the US, namely Florida.
I like the car, not trying to put it down, just shed some light on it's history for you.
here is the link: http://www.renaultcaravelle.com/tech.html
Jon
s.h. nisser on July 09, 2008 at 12:52 PM
hi dave talk about deja vu, looking at the picture of you in your white "63 s". I also owned one (same spec's) in 1972. I believe i may still have the manual and the latch rod for the hardtop, i just loved that car and so did my girl freinds! especially since it was fast and economical we could go places and look cool at the same time, $20 to san francisco, the warf, the beach and back (135 miles one way) with the top on or off up or down, just a lot of fun. I got bored with the 948cc and replaced it with the 1289cc out of a "71' r-10...Hot Damn!! had to change tire size. I also owned a few r-10's, which allowed me to afford my hot mopars, however I still miss that caravelle S, thanks for the memories.
Eric Gavin UK on July 09, 2008 at 03:22 PM
I have had 4 of these Caravelles ever since my mother saw Brigitte Bardot had one (and Grace Kelly), had one and had past on to me as a 20 year old sudent . Drove it all the way to Turkey and Crete for 3 months in 1976 and it was faultless. Not a sports car, but great tourer and great mpg 40+. Tyre pressures need a bit of adjustment to make it feel safe. Put a bag of coal in the baggage compartment to balance it a bit, or get Cosmic wheels to surefoot them, ( but not the same aesthetics as intended by the designers. Underpowered, but what the hell, the best head turner with the roof down and better that an Aston DB5 at doing that, as I had both at the same time and the former always got the looks. (in 1976) Now people come up and and say what a beautiful cat it is; a Classic!
Got two at the moment and love 'em.
Dale Kroner on July 30, 2008 at 12:29 PM
My Caravelle was my first car and looked exactly like the one in the picture. I thought I was hot stuff in that car only to find out what a real piece of %*#! it was. The electrical system sucked. The starter never worked right so I would have to take the jack handle and crank start it (yes it had a hole under the back bumper and a crank hole on the engine to crank start it, wonder why they thought of this innovation?). Whenever I needed parts I had to drive 100 miles to Dayton, Ohio. Then the parts were an exhorbatant price because I had to pay import taxes. French engineering!
Bill Houghton on June 09, 2009 at 07:06 PM
Attractive and quirky car, yes. My dad had one on his car lot, and I borrowed it to take my girlfriend for a ride. He asked me to check the water in the radiator, and I promptly dropped the radiator cap, breaking it.
I didn't realize until we were miles away from gas stations that, when you shut the hood, the radiator cap, which was bracketed to the hood, rested right over the distributor. The water dripping on the distributor brought us to a halt - not, unfortunately, in a nice woodsy area, where we could at least have cooled off (or heated up, depending on how you view teenage hormones...). Seemed to take forever to get home, as I had to stop periodically to dry off the distributor.