With the Estafette, Renault ran front, rear, and rear-wheel-drive front-engine layouts across its lineup at once, the only automaker to do so.
Lead trim: 845 cc Billancourt · up to 53 hp
Renault Estafette1959–1980
- 0spots by members
- Unclaimednobody has spotted one yet
- 0sets it belongs to
Nobody in Burbles has spotted a Renault Estafette yet. See one on the street, point the app at it, and the first card is yours — with your @handle permanently credited on this page.
FactWith the Estafette, Renault ran front, rear, and rear-wheel-drive front-engine layouts across its lineup at once, the only automaker to do so.
The Renault Estafette is a light commercial front-wheel drive van produced by Renault from 1959 to 1980 in France (and in Algeria, Romania as the Dacia D6 Estafette, and Mexico). It initially used the water-cooled Renault Ventoux engine, later the Cléon-Fonte engine, in a range of body styles: a 4-door minibus, 3-/4-door van, 2-door pickup and 2-door chassis cab. It was replaced by the Renault Trafic. Following the launch of the Estafette, Renault became the only automaker in the world to simultaneously produce and sell vehicles with all three of the drive train configurations commonly used: the front-engine front-wheel drive Estafette, various rear-engine rear-wheel drive cars such as the Dauphine, and the front-engine rear-wheel drive Frégate and the ageing Dauphinoise. It was designed to fill the gap between the 300 kg Renault Juvaquatre and the 1000 kg 206 E1, a position previously held by the Colorale van that ended production in 1957, and it was sold in the USA and Canada as the Renault Hi-Boy and Petit-Panel.
Collectors Spotted in the Renault Estafette Lineage
No member has published a public street spot of the Renault Estafette yet — the First · Worldwide stamp is wide open.
Trims & Figures
3 published trims in the catalogue. A blank is a figure not recorded, not zero.
| Trim | Years | Engine | Power | Torque | 0–60 | Drive | Gearbox | MSRP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1108 cc Cléon-Fonte | 1959–1980 | 1.1 L Inline-4 | 44 hp | — | — | FWD | — | — |
| 1289 cc Cléon-Fonte | 1959–1980 | 1.3 L Inline-4 | 53 hp | — | — | FWD | — | — |
| 845 cc Billancourt | 1959–1980 | 0.8 L Inline-4 | 32 hp | 56 lb-ft | — | FWD | — | — |
Owning one
We don’t estimate running costs for a car like this. What it costs depends on its condition, its specialist and how it is driven, and an average would mislead.
Owners’ builds
Nobody has claimed one yet.
Photographs
Rivals
Same body, same money, other badges — tap any card to flip.
Chevy pitched the Astro as the anti-minivan, telling buyers life was too big for one, while it rode on a rear-wheel-drive truck frame.
The IIHS rated the Astro Poor in a 1996 crash test, yet 2001–2004 Astros later had the lowest driver death rate of any US passenger vehicle.
The boxy, unglamorous Astro quietly posted one of the best real-world safety records in America: IIHS found 2001-2004 models had the fewest driver deaths per million vehicles of any passenger vehicle on US roads.
The third-generation Tourneo Connect, released in Europe in October 2021, is a rebadged fourth-generation Volkswagen Caddy, assembled by Volkswagen in Poland.
Ford beat the 25% "chicken tax" by importing the Transit Connect as a passenger van — rear windows and seats included, then stripped out and recycled once it landed in the US.
Ford spent years in federal court over the second-gen Transit Connect: in June 2019 the US won its appeal, and judges ruled the van was cargo-only — ending Ford's workaround for the 'chicken tax.'
GM sold a rebadged Nissan NV200 as the Chevy City Express for four years, then killed it in 2018, citing weak sales and the fact that its parts weren't even compatible with GM's own parts catalog.
Its name is a pun: "S-Cargo" means "Small Cargo" but sounds just like escargot — French for snail, the shape the whole van was built to resemble.