There is every chance you have never heard of a Renault Floride. but I have, you see maybe 15 years ago I saw a Renault Floride advertised for something like $1,500 and I considered buying it, seriously considered it, Although I have not mechanical capabilities I thought - I could restore that. But I had nowhere to put it not having a house with a garage or anything so I decided not to buy it. I've regretted ever since.
So now that I have a chance to get one again I'm pretty excited. Okay it's made of Lego, and I have to make it from scratch myself and I can't drive it, but I can still have one and that's pretty darn cool.
Now let me go back an explain the whole situation better. Let's start with the car. The Renault Floride was built between 1958 and 1968 but European car maker Renault. It was based off the Renault Dauphine, and named Floride (outside of the US and Britian where it was called the Caravelle) becuase the idea came from the meeting they had in Florida about breaking into the US market. It was decided that they needed a Convertible - becuase, you know Convertibles are cool.
It's rear engined, tiny engined, underpowered and cool in a early sixties kind of way here is a picture of a real life one I stole off the interwebs
And now from the Lego side. There are lots and lots of car designs on my favourite Lego based website rebrickable but I never really expected there to be a Floride - I means it's a pretty obscure car. But then I found one - it's an alternative build of the MINI set - Which I didn't own - I though about changing the colour of it (Given the actual car never came in Bristish racing green anyway) - I was working on this project - finding the right pieces when I lucked into the MINI set which I've explained before I was excited by making the MINI but I was perhaps more excited about turning the MINI into a Renault Floride
So the MINI was disassembled - Sets always look a little sad when they are just a pile of pieces, but I guess it true what they say when you are restoring a classic car - you have to strip it all the way back to build it back up again
First step like all of these cars is the ladder chassis to build everything else off. A little bit weird is the bracing which is at the rear there will be a engine go between those things.
You can see the start of the engine in the shot below, as well as the start of the seats - there isn't much room inside, but that feels pretty true to life. Not sure I like the tan colour for the seats in real life they had cool 60's colours like bright red.
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here is a closer look at the engine bay
I got a little engrossed when I was building and forgot to take too many more progress shots, but here are some of the finished product
I do like how the design has the angles flat front - as the engine's at the back it doesn't need air intakes in the front hence the weird design The way it the wrap around bumper is cool as well - would be nice if it was in silver, but we are working with the dark palette on the mini.
The rear is super impressive as well when you compare this to the real thing it's made a good attempt at the fins, and the black air vents in the right spot, and the bulge from the roof as well - although again a green car with a white roof wouldn't work at all
oh and one last shot so you can admire the little silver air intakes at the back of the doors - it's details like that which make this
So I'm pretty happy with this - although I sit don't have my real life classic convertible I do have this nice substitute to play with - and much cheaper.