Two rare Renaults, both sold as new in Sweden, stands out on Bilweb Auction´s second listing in March: a single owner 1967 R8 Gordini and a 1998 ultra low milage Sport Spider.
R8 Gordini
In the early Sixties Renault turned to the racing driver and sports car manufacturer Amédée Gordini, asking him to develop a performance version of the family saloon R8. The result was the R8 Gordini, a small power package that was hugely successful on the racing tracks, but also sold to the public. Always painted in ”Bleu de France”, the French racing color supplemented with stripes in white.
Only 30 R8 Gordinis were sold in Sweden between 1964 and 1970. One of them was bought in 1967 by the electrician Carl Gustav Svensson in Dals Langed. With its spectacular paint and four yellow headlamps, it must have been quite a sensation in the little village.
The performance was - by the standards of the time - exhilarating: the 1.3 litre engine with its twin Webers produced 88 horsepower, almost twice as much as in a standard R8, resulting in a top speed of 175 km/h. A 5-speed gearbox was unusual at the time, as well as brake discs on all four wheels.The Gordini had two fuel tanks, front and rear, in order to optimize the weight distribution.
Carl Gustav Svensson used his car as a daily driver until 1982. It was then bought back by the dealer that sold it to him new, Bil-Nilsson. Since then it has been a part of the company’s collection. It retains its original paint, apart from the repaint of the hood after a minor damage.
A Swedish sold Renault R8 Gordini in this original condition, with just one owner, is something very unusual, a unique opportunity for the collector.
The value is estimated to between 400 000 and 500 000 SEK.
To the auction
Renault Sport Spider
30 years later Renault again wanted to develop a car that stood out from the crowd, made both for the track and for the street.
On the car show in Geneva in March 1995, Renault Sport presented the Spider, a two seater roadster mainly built upon the technology from the Megane. The frame was all-aluminium and the body made of composite materials. It was powered by the same 2-litre 16 valve engine that could be found the Clio Williams and with 148 horsepower.
The first cars had no windscreen, just an ”aeroscreen”, a diminutive wind deflector. In 1997 a normal windscreen with a wiper was introduced. Unusually enough the Spider was sold without a roof. An aftermarket solution was developed, but it was so ugly that very few bought one.
The most prominent design features are the huge air scoops just outside the seats as well as the ”scissor” doors. The interior design is very frugal with only 3 instrument facing the driver, the rev counter being bigger and in the center. The speedometer is deported to a small digital screen in the center console.
The yellow Spider that is now up for bidding at Bilweb Auctions has only 1960 kilometers on the clock and is in as-new condition. It is a model year 1998 and was bought by the Swedish dealer Bil-Nilsson, becoming a part of the company’s car collection.
According to Renault, only 1 640 Spiders were manufactured in total, out of which 380 was model year 1998. Very few were sold in Sweden.
The estimated value of the car is between 520 000 and 580 000 SEK.
To the auction
