With all the Japanese and Korean cars on the market right now, the last thing American consumers want right now is French cars, but they are apparently going to get them by the end of the decade.
There have been no French cars sold in America (directly, not imports) for 25 years, but we've just discovered that Renault has placed a patent with the German office that reads "RENAULT TENNESSEE". Not only that, but it's not classified as an automobile and infringement protection started in September 2014.
Renault hasn't had a car in America since the days of partnership with AMC and Chrysler. Their last model was the Eagle Premier, which is we're not mistaken was a rebadged Dodge Monaco full-size sedan.
That kind of ties in with the development of a new Laguna sedan, which we expect will be much larger and might even appeal to US buyers. But there are more interesting cars the French should offer, such as the rear-engined Twingo city car, the Zoe electric vehicle, the Clio or the Captur. But let's not forget that the famous Alpine sportscar brand is making a comeback in 2016. Perfect timing, right?
We don't want to state the obvious here, but Tennessee is a hub o Nissan activity and the two companies are joined umbilically, even sharing their CEO. Nissan's factory in Smyrna, Tennessee makes the Leaf, Altima, Maxima, Rogue, Pathfinder and its Infiniti counterpart, the QX60.
As a car enthusiast, the only two Renaults I really want to see in America are the 200-ish horsepower Clio RS and the Megane RS, which is still the fastest FWD car in the world right now.
Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida. Full profile
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