Renault has announced that it is relaunching the Gordini name as a range of sporty cars. The first car to be given the Gordini treatment will be the Twingo with plans to follow up with the Megane and Clio. It is not clear what will happen to the current Renaultsport models. These are produced at the old Alpine factory in Dieppe. The plans to revive the Alpine brand for a future sports car, which rumours suggested would be based on Nissan’s 350Z. Those plans were cancelled at the start the year because of the economic downturn and it seems that Renault is using the Gordini brand to revamp its sporty product range, without the same level of cost. It may be that Gordini will figure in the plans for F1 that will be announced by Carlos Ghosn in the next few weeks.
Amedee Gordini was a celebrated engineer who ran France’s only F1 teams in the 1950s. Nicknamed “The Sorcerer” because of his ability to find horsepower Gordini began building single-seaters in 1946 using Fiat engines, but later became better-known with his Simca engines. There were many win at national level but few internationally, although the marque’s most famous victory was in 1952 when Jean Behra beat the Ferraris in the non-championship Reims Grand Prix. In 1956 Gordini began working as a consultant engineer with Renault and disbanded the F1 team. He worked on the design of the Renault Dauphine which enjoyed much success in rallying in the late 1950s. He later developed the Renault 8 for racing and rallying, which resulted in the Coupe Gordini series in 1966 where many of the top French drivers and the 1970s learned their trade. At the end of 1968 the Gordini company was merged into Renault and in February 1969 the staff were moved to Viry-Chatillon where many of his staff became key players in the Renault Sport adventures of the 1970s and 1980s. The factory at Viry-Chatillon is named after him. It is expected that the Gordini brand will be used in much the same way as Mini uses Cooper and Fiat uses Abarth.
The big question is whether the F1 programme may be part of the rebranding.
joeblogsf1 
So is a chance for a French National Team, I mean accepted by french nation..?
@ Joe Saward
“It is expected that the Gordini brand will be used in much the same way as Mini uses Cooper and Fiat uses Abarth.”
That’s not exactly clear to me, I must say, since the Cooper is just the top model of the Mini range, while Fiat recently switched their top sporty models to the Abarth Brand, i.e. the Abarth Grande Punto.
If Renault opt for the latter, naming their sporty models ‘Gordini Clio’ they would have to rename their team ‘Gordini F1 Team’, but if they go for the former, and name their sporty models ‘Renault Twingo Gordini’, adding Gordini to the Renault team name, e.g. ‘Renault Gordini F1 Team’, might be the way to go.
as an aside, what is the state of the reims circuit, has it now fallen into ruin? just a thought about anything that could replace the unpopular but important magny-cours for a french GP…
John G,
I was in Reims on the way back from Spa in September and it was a lot better than I remembered. This due to the fact that there is now a decent historic meeting taking place there each year. I have some photos somewhere. I will have to look…
Makes sense to me, the Renault brand is tainted.
Renault need sponsorship after losing ING. Perhaps they can get Taco Bell? Gordini Gordita cobranding? Must be lunchtime…
Lunchtime the french way is certainly not to taco’s way 🙂 that won’t work at all with the French…
In France the car is not considered as a status symbol and you won’t find many frenchmen washing their cars in the street on the sunday morning… so as to what the french nation will accept well.. we have already Renault that is enough. For the man in the street it is French they don’t even know of Enstone! After all I recently discovered that the brits (some of them at least) didn’t know Total or Orange were french.
The French are not petrolheads and despite Sebastien Loeb is a 6 times WRC world champion I am pretty sure he can walk the streets without being noticed. Of course if a frenchman was the current F1 WC it would probably be different (I can remeber Prost’s time) but mainly because the medias will make a lot of noise, and like every other nation we will be very proud to be “the best” as of course and like anywhere else, if HE was champion then WE would be the best… There is no passion in France for motor racing, nothing to compare with the UK really.
Renault has a stong name in F1 and has introduced a lot of innovations such as the turbo (remember the yellow teapot…) the 10 cylinders -with Honda- and many other things. It appears to me that the Renault engines are still very good… in a RBR chassis. Memories are short in F1 and Renault should not fear anything, after all McLaren and Ferrari and a few other recovered very well in the (recent) past.
Gordini appeals only to the petrolheads (I am one of them) and the R8 Gordini has the same sort of reputation there as the Mini Cooper has here, but to the general public it does not say much. I can see the revival of Gordini or Alpine for sport cars but not in F1. Remember Renault is in F1 to promote their name and their products not some famous name from the past.
I will be very sad if Renault F1 changed their name or were to be sold…
PS: Amazingly The R5 Alpine was called Gordini in the UK because the name “Alpine” belongs to Sunbeam… Like the Porsche 901 was finally called 911 because Peugeot was holding a patent for all 3 digits numbers with a zero in the middle (104, 204, 204, 304,404, 504, 604 and many others….)
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