The Renault 8 is a 4-door saloon from Renault, built from 1962 to 1976, in the decade that gave the world the pony car and the mid-engined supercar. Under the bonnet: 956 .
Where it came from
The Renault 8 (Renault R8 until 1964) is a small family car produced by the French manufacturer Renault in the 1960s and early 1970s. It is a four-door saloon car with a rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout. The 8 also formed the basis for the larger Renault 10, introduced in 1965. The 8 was launched in 1962 and ceased production and sales in France in 1976.
By then the related Renault 10 had already been replaced, two years earlier, by the front wheel drive Renault 12. They were produced in Bulgaria until 1970 (see Bulgarrenault), and an adapted version of the Renault 8 continued to be produced in Spain until 1976. In Romania, a version of the 8 was produced under license between 1968 and 1972 as the Dacia 1100. In total 37,546 Dacia 1100s were built.
Under the skin
Power comes from 956 other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. It shifts through a 3-speed manual / 4-speed manual / 5-speed manual. The layout matters: the engine hangs behind the rear axle, a layout that gives ferocious traction out of a corner and a reputation to match on the way in. The wheelbase is 2270 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
In context
Its family tree is legible: it took over from the Renault Dauphine; its successor was the Renault 14; assembly was at Flins Renault Factory. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Alfa Romeo Giulia, the Ferrari 250 GTO, the Volvo P1800 — show what else the money bought that year. Nearby in the Renault catalogue sit the Renault 10 and the Renault 10CV.
What it costs now
MotorJury scores cars on the United States complaint and recall record, and the Renault 8 has none: too old, too rare, or never sold there. Its value today is a collector's question, decided by provenance and condition rather than by a class average.