page_title: Renault 4
section_title: Structure and running gear
hierarchical_section_title: Renault 4 / Structure and running gear
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Châssis équipé de sa mécanique
context_page_description: The Renault 4, also known as the 4L, is a small economy car produced by the French automaker Renault between 1961 and 1994. It was the first front-wheel drive family car produced by Renault.
  The car was launched at a time when several decades of economic stagnation were giving way to growing prosperity and surging car ownership in France. The first million cars were produced by 1 February 1966, less than four and a half years after launch; eventually over eight million were built, making the Renault 4 a commercial success because of the timing of its introduction and the merits of its design.
context_section_description: The three principal new models introduced by Renault since the war  had all featured monocoque "chassisless" construction which was believed to save cost in the manufacturing process and to cut running costs by reducing vehicle weight. The Renault R3/R4 design defied this by now widely accepted mantra, employing a separate platform to which the body shell was then attached. The body's structural role in maintaining the overall rigidity of the car body was thereby reduced, placing less stress on the roof and allowing for thinner window pillars.  Although the use made of a separate platform resembled, in some respects, the use that pre-war designs would have made of a chassis, the outcome was a structure described as semi-monocoque, and it would later allow Renault to use the R4 platform, with very little modification, to build new models such as the Renault 6 and Rodeo.  (Later, the successful Renault 5 used the R4 running gear but in a monocoque shell).
caption: Renault 4 rolling chassis showing the car's platform frame structure.
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