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(Wed 11 Nov 09) Renault has announced that it is to resume - after a break of some years - cars bearing the name of the celebrated engineer Amédée Gordini.
Rejoice in this if you have an ounce of passion in your soul, for Gordini is a man to be remembered. He built several Grand Prix and sports racing cars, and was once linked closely with Simca, but he is more famous for his connections with Renault, to whom he eventually sold his tuning company. One of the most famous Renaults was the 8 Gordini, which in 1964 incredibly took four of the top five places overall (including first) in the Tour of Corsica rally. The Gordini Cup (pictured above), established two years later for a 1300cc version of the same car, was one of the earliest one-make race series. His name is being brought back for two modern high-performance Renaults, both of them developed by Renault Sport Technologies, which also created the various Renaultsport models of recent years. The Twingo Gordini will be unveiled at L'Atelier Renault in Paris on November 25 and go on sale next spring, followed a few months later by the Clio Gordini. Technical details have not yet been confirmed, but Renault is saying that the cars will be in the traditional colours of light blue with two white stripes. The return of Gordini bears a close similarity to Fiat's decision to revive Carlo Abarth's name for high-performance versions of the Grande Punto and 500. Such reverence for past glory can only be applauded. |
