Attacking the competition is necessary for car manufacturers. But killing your own product is the wrong ammunition. No matter how sharp it is. Because that was the Renault 14. Basically, this intended VW Golf alternative was a promising concept.
Lively
The friendly hatchback had a few things on board that were certainly not standard for its class in 1976, the year of its introduction. The Renault 14 was bigger and more spacious and also looked much more lively than the deadly serious German he had to tackle. The latter only wanted to be the best. The Renault 14 of course too, but the Frenchman lacked that typical Teutonic doggedness and build to be guaranteed to be successful. That did not happen.
La Poire
The Renault 14 in itself was not solely to blame for this. The marketers had conceived the bright idea of promoting the 14 in pear shape. La Poire. The idea… It must have been launched after a lavish lunch with a lot of wine, because it was unceremoniously hit. The next day nobody scratched their heads and the hungover advertising boys and girls got to work with all kinds of videos and images of the Renault 14. and a pear. On a poster, an entire family, including a huge dog, was projected in a hollowed-out version of the bulging fruit with the text “Your poire câ € ™ est confortable” above it. And still nobody said anything.
Imago
Now the shape of the Renault 14 was characteristic, but certainly not unattractive. With squinted eyes it was quite possible to recognize a pear shape, but it could just as well be described as aerodynamic or wedge-shaped. However, it was too late for that. The advertising legion turned out to have justly sent peppered bills for the campaign and lunches: from then on the French public knew the Renault 14 as the peer. And apparently the successful campaign was so expensive that significant savings had to be made elsewhere. Okay, back to rust prevention. As a result, over time, the Renault 14 continued to be known as a rotten pear among the general public. Quelle image.
Luxury
And shake that off. Such a false image sticks like a flycatcher in thin hair. All the pluses and novelties were dwarfed by this stigma. It was the first car in its class without gutters. The McPherson front suspension was special in its segment. The reinforcement in the doors was also not commonplace and increased passive safety. Comfort was at a high level, the Renault 14 was quiet and spacious. But not very reliable. The engine shared this model with Peugeot, the 1218 cc aluminum four-cylinder block lay at an angle of 72° back under the hood and occasionally refuse service. Working, the power unit delivered 57 hp to the front wheels. Not much, but not as scanty as the standard equipment of this Renault 14 L. The L stood here rather euphemistically for luxury.
Facelift
This basic version had only the necessary supplies on board, even headrests were missing. The sjeu had to come from the more luxurious TL and GTL versions. The later TS version was also more powerful; by using a double carburettor, this sportsman delivered 71 hp to the front wheels. During its career the capacity was increased to 1360 cc, in 1980 a facelift followed in which the direction indicators were moved from the bumper to a place next to the headlights as the most eye-catching change. The Renault 14 also became more and more luxurious with things like central locking, electric windows at the front and halogen headlights. An enormous folding roof was also available as an option, the découvrable. With this fully open and the whole family on board, the poster with the hollowed out pear suddenly came to life.
Million
Livelier than the career of this lovable Renault 14 itself, in any case. Just under a million 14's were built in six years. Due to its reliability and rust issues, there are almost no copies left of the car that had much more to offer than that lousy image. The 14 certainly had potential, but it all went pear-shaped.
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Love this article about the Renault 14! I also have one, a yellow one like from the first brochures.
This car deserved more success. On the highway you drive in relative silence 100 km per hour. Very different from a Renault 5 or VW Golf from that time.
The Renault dealers had little to do with the 'Peugeot' technology and even now there are Renault enthusiasts who do not see it as a real Renault ;-). However, it is a logical continuation of the R5 concept, with shield bumpers and rounded body edges.
Hi Edwin, that is a special yellow 14 from the first phase. Is that an original Dutch car?
Hi Henk, yes, original Dutch from 1978. There are only about 10 R14's with MOT in the Netherlands, I thought two original phase 1's still. I found mine 6 years ago. I know most of the 14's in NL now, curious if I know yours too...
That is special. Is she for sale?
Mine has a Belgian license plate, I know three or four people who also have a 14.
Do you have a picture of your 14?
Henkp1@hotmail.com
Hi Edwin, that's nice, is she for sale?
Mine still has a Belgian license plate, but I know three or four people with a Dutch 14. Do you have pictures of your 14?
You can reach me at henkp1 at hotmail dot com.
There was also a beautiful, special version: the Safrane. It rusted even harder than the regular version. Perhaps because that version looked nice and therefore attracted extra visual attention. But they oxidized better than the best. Thus, the Safrane label became a warning.
And guess what: the marketing department has also applied this name to later Renaults. And of course there was immediately every rust on, with me certainly anyway. I've often wondered who (or just: Which Jan Lul) had come up with that strategy.
The Renault 14 Safrane was an action model that was delivered in 1979, the car was only available in (ok I head it right but in) 'rust brown', see the second photo. In the Netherlands there is at least one left that is in very good, original condition and yes, rust free.
That the Safrane would rust harder than the regular 14 is a myth.
In 1992 came the successor of the Renault 25 and it was indeed called Safrane. That was just a very good and solid car (yes!) that was well treated against rust.
Incidentally, with the arrival of the Renault 9, Renault had already mastered the rust ghost well, large parts of that model were galvanized. Since then, the rust ghost has been dispelled at Renault anyway, but still not in the minds of some people.
Phase 2 of the 14 was also much better protected than the first phase. Can still be found in France.
My second car as a student (pre MOT). Looked good, but unfortunately rust and the persistence of not wanting to start with the weather forecast 'rain'..
Once it ran it was a nice steering car. Have been able to drive for about 1.5 years and then the pear was too rotten.
Marketers sometimes destroy more than you would like. If you occasionally read what nonsense they spew. And most people still believe it. With the Peer it was therefore also swallowed as a sweet fruit, unfortunately for the image that pear turned out to be sour.
Then the Germans do it better: all advertising nonsense about the unsurpassed Beetle, decent Golf (even Gran Turismo was abused) and the ID power car goes in uncritically.
I don't call the advertising of some German car manufacturers marketing, but propaganda. And I must say they have done well.
Because the engine was mounted backwards in the muzzle and it was not considered to move the ignition distributor, it was quite a job to adjust the ignition.
Mess with a mirror to get the contact points right.
With the GS/GSA, the ignition is also in an impossible place, on the back of the overhead camshaft of the boxer (horizontal at the bottom). But: 2 nuts loose and you have it in hand. Then you can work on it quietly, renew the contact points and adjust the lift height and after mounting with a flash lamp, simply set the time by turning the housing. Nuts on and you're done.
Wasn't it so easy with the Poire? I would think it makes sense to engineer it that way.
partially repainted within 3 months. also the exhaust tore within a year, was the first transversely plastified engine, causing metal fatigue. also had to have the engine replaced in France, with the internal cooling circuit and self-thinking fan it went wrong. within 1 year the horn wires also grow, horn in unprotected wheel arch. and still enjoyed driving that car for 4 years.
oh yes, wild headrests, woman can dealer in Gerwen has found fabric to sew them herself. were not readily available.
The windshield, which had not yet been glued, snapped out of the groove at the slightest hint
there was so much warp in that Anjou pear. Driving up the curb with the right front wheel was enough,
This happened BEFORE the car started showing signs of rust after 5 months.
How you get used to it, and I am very enthusiastic about most of the cars from “La Regie”
The 14 was a huge and very expensive failure for Renault. They were environmentally friendly
the whole car “completely disintegrated” in a pile of dust. Unfortunately.
I've had a number of 14's (stronger: I still have one) with quite high mileage 175.000-230.000) but I've never seen or heard of that windshield. Rust yes. Furthermore, the 14 was no worse/better than other cars at the time in terms of quality.
Nice article, good that attention is given to this misunderstood car. The article is just not quite right. In 1976, the Golf was nowhere near as popular and well-known as it is today, so the 14 was certainly not primarily intended as a response to the Golf, and the development of the 14 started well before the introduction of the Golf. Incidentally, the R6 was more of a direct competitor to the Golf, especially in terms of dimensions. And also look at the resemblance between the R6 and the Golf. Only the 6 is from 1968.
Headrests were certainly not standard on simpler versions in the 70s.
The 14TS came in 1978 and was very luxurious for the time with standard features that even very expensive cars had to do without, such as electric windows and central locking.
The 14 was not more susceptible to malfunction than other contemporaries, only the car was very bothered by the rust ghost. The 14 was not popular at Renault garages, because it was too much of a Peugeot. Not entirely correct, because the engine came from the factory that belonged to Renault and Peugeot.
The 14 is very spacious inside, drives great (comfortable and sporty yes) and is just reliable (except for the rust). I've worn out about 5 of these, some of them crashed in my youth.
Oh yes 'pear' has a less good connotation in French, like 'donkey' in Dutch; not really smart to hang the advertising campaign on that.
My father-in-law had this car for a while when I was dating. bright yellow. It drove fine, but rusted terribly. And technically.. I remember that I was once under it because the contact of the lever with the gearbox was broken. It turned out that the transmission from poker to gearbox consisted of two subtle rods, which sometimes came loose…
I did an internship at a Renault dealer in the mid-eighties. When the 14 came up, the first thing the mechanics started was: leaking head gaskets of that Peugeot engine.
The cooling system developed by Renault was apparently also inadequate.
Have you ever helped an R14 off its leaking head gasket? The engine was removed. Located in the car, there was really no tinkering due to the awfully flat installation position. Apparently driving hard on gas didn't mean much good to him either
That the R14 was seen purely as a consumable item may be clear from an article by autobild last year.
Out of more than 1 million! copies delivered in Germany, exactly 2 were still registered in 2021.
According to Wikipedia, a total of 999250 copies have been built, autobild may have been slightly wrong with the numbers delivered to Germany.