The Gordini Story: How Legendary Fast Renaults Paved Way For Alpine

From hot and slightly mad Clios and Méganes to the brilliance of the modern A110 sports car, Renault has consistently displayed its ability to produce fast, fun and exciting drivers’ cars for decades.

Very few have missed the mark, while also offering desirable qualities in packages that have actually been attainable for enthusiasts.

This is something that Renault has been doing for longer than you might think. Before the rebooted version of Alpine, before Renaultsport and before the crazy days of the 5 Turbo, its hot models were denoted by another name: Gordini.

The name belonged to Italian-born engineer and racing driver Amédée Gordini (pictured below, right). Born in 1899, he was captivated by engineering and motorsport from an early age, finding work at Fiat with Edoardo Weber and later building engines alongside Alfieri Maserati, before moving to Paris in 1925.

There Gordini worked for Simca, which imported and assembled Fiats under license in France. Before long he could be found at the helm of the brand’s motorsport division.

He began work on race versions of Simca models, with expertly tuned versions of their Fiat engines, and his cars enjoyed success at major events like the Bol d’Or and Le Mans 24 Hours in the latter half of the 1930s.

Gordini’s ability to extract every ounce of performance from the quite rudimentary and simple Fiat powerplants he had at his disposal earned him the nickname ‘The Sorcerer’.

He remained at Simca until he couldn’t persuade the company to finance his ambitions of a Formula 1 race programme, leaving in 1951 to set up on his own.

As a result, he got his grand prix wish with Équipe Gordini between 1950 and 1956.

Despite his reputation as one of the most influential and imaginative engine builders around, he was constantly burdened by a shoestring budget, although his team did score a few podiums and enjoyed intermittent battles with the might of Ferrari.

Unbeknownst to Gordini, however, his next venture was to be his greatest success. F1 had drained his funds by the end of the 1956 season, and a new direction was needed – which happened to come in the form of Renault.

In 1956, the French brand’s humble, rear-engined Dauphine saloon had surprised everybody by pulling off a string of victories in the world of rallying. The Dauphine was by no means a performance car, but these successes made its potential to be one all the more exciting – and the out-of-work Gordini was the perfect man for the job of making that happen.

The result of this collaboration was the Dauphine Gordini, the first Renault to bear the engineer’s name. Unveiled at the 1957 Paris motor show, it wasn’t exactly a rocket ship (0-62mph took 27sec), but even so, it won the Monte Carlo Rally outright the following year.

Thanks to Gordini’s unique talent for engine building, the Dauphine only got faster as he squeezed more and more performance from its little inline four.

This culminated in the sought-after 1093 variant, a 55bhp homologation special of which only 2140 examples were built, which was able to maintain the Dauphine’s rally winning streak.

The success of the go-faster Dauphines subsequently led to a second Renault Gordini model, which would go down as the most famous of all. In 1964, the Dauphine’s replacement, the 8, was next in line for a performance spruce-up, receiving fatter wheels and tyres, more competent suspension and a close-ratio gearbox. It also famously featured a quad-headlight front and the body was painted blue, complete with two slender, off-centre white stripes over the top of the car.

It looked the part – and with Gordini’s engine tuning expertise, it had the go to match. The 8 Gordini produced 95bhp – nearly double that of the standard car.

After an update in 1966 that introduced a 1.3-litre engine and a five-speed gearbox, the top speed of the ‘Gorde' climbed above 100mph, which was a serious figure for the time.

The 8 Gordini dominated the rally world, winning the San Remo and the Tour De Course, and even inspired the world’s first one-make race series.

By all accounts, the Renault-Gordini partnership was now a serious force within the automotive world, and it was further cemented when Gordini’s operations were fully incorporated into the Renault brand in 1969 with a new factory in Viry-Châtillon.

Further models followed: the 12 Gordini appeared in 1970 as a lightweight, front-wheel-drive saloon, the 17 Gordini in 1974 as a performance fastback and, in the UK, the 5 received a hot Gordini trim in 1979.

Gordini also continued to provide his motorsport knowhow, ultimately helping to design the framework of the turbo V6 that powered the Alpine-Renault A442-B that won Le Mans outright in 1978 – arguably the greatest result in the brand’s racing history – one that Gordini got to see before he died a year later, aged 79.

The Viry-Châtillon facility would later become the home of Renaultsport, and a number of future hot Clios and Twingos in the early 2010s would bear Gordini's name in tribute.

Since then, the Gordini designation has mostly lain dormant – until now. The fabulous new 8 Gordini concept takes clear inspiration from the car that most famously featured the Sorcerer’s surname and utilised his extraordinary talent to firmly place fast Renaults on the map.

It’s little wonder that Renault continues to honour his legacy, as the brand wouldn’t be the same today without him.