Long before the hot hatch became Europe’s idea of fun, French rally enthusiasts worshipped a little shoebox called “la Gorde.” In 1964, Renault put a crossflow head onto a rear-mounted engine, dialed in a tail-heavy, pendulum-like handling balance, slapped two white racing stripes over Bleu de France paint, and gave everyday motorists a masterclass in opposite-lock physics.
If you mastered an original Renault 8 Gordini on a rain-slicked Alpine pass, you could drive anything – don’t take my word for it, ask rally god Jean Ragnotti, who learned his legendary car control from that very rear axle. And Renault decided that it would be a great idea to drag that rear-wheel-drive troublemaker into the high-voltage era.
