Holidays are a sign of relaxation. There’s always time to unwind before the return to work looms on the horizon. And speaking of looming, we found something looming on board the Renault Sport Spider. It’s the perfect opportunity to talk about this legendary model with two little-known anecdotes…
We’ll start with the splendid drawing of this Renault Sport spider (above) published in Renault’s beautiful communication booklet for the launch of this limited edition of a vehicle that left a lasting impression. This drawing is the work of French designer Benoît Jacob, who is responsible for this model at Renault, as well as the Fiftie concept car and the production versions of the Laguna 2 and the first generation Logan. This red drawing hides a little surprise…
“Oh no, you’re not going to talk about the mouse, are you?!‘’ But yes, Benoît, holidays are for relaxing a little. ’’It’s crazy, everyone only talks to me about that mouse when we mention the Renault Spider design! It’s a bit reductive. It’s like raving about the BMW i8 when I find the i3 much more interesting.” This French designer actually designed both BMWs after leaving Renault, and is now the right-hand man of Zhang Fan, global design director at Chinese manufacturer GAC. You can read the fascinating interview he gave us here, with no mice in sight: https://lignesauto.fr/?p=36425
Benoît was kind enough to revisit this little fantasy: a mouse is indeed stuck under the bonnet of the Renault Sport Spider, and hundreds of copies – perhaps more – were printed for an official Renault press release! “First, you have to explain that this image in the drawing isn’t particularly funny… I don’t even remember where the mouse came from.“
‘On the other hand, I remember this large drawing of the Spider from above. I used an A2 format (twice the size of A3, editor’s note). It wasn’t very common to draw a new model from above at the time, but as the Spider RS was very graphic, the idea came naturally to me. I completed the drawing in a few hours…’
When asked if the presence of a bedraggled mouse was a sign of depression on his part, Benoît burst out laughing: ‘No, that’s not the style of the house!’ As for the drawing, I remember that before the Spider was launched in Geneva, the communications guy was pestering me, saying they needed drawings, drawings… Obviously, this red drawing wasn’t the first one. But I lost track of it after it went to the printers for the press kit.” Above is the double page in question from the Spider booklet unveiled at the launch of this new Renault sports car.
It’s a habit of many designers to include gimmicks like this in their illustrations. “We’re seeing this more and more in new models, such as the use of relief effects throughout the interior and even on the exterior (Citroën C3 or Fiat Panda). It’s meant to be fun, but it’s not. It’s true that the red Spider’s mouse wasn’t engraved, but it was badly damaged by the tonneau cover! Is Benoît afraid of this little rodent?
“Not at all! However, I did have quite a few mice at one point in my garage in Munich where I was restoring my cars. There was a period when a Thai restaurant opened next door to my garage and there were mice everywhere in the neighbourhood! When I restored my Dino, I found some under the rear seat, and another time, on a quiet Sunday, I heard a strange noise in the workshop coming from my Ferrari 365 GT4 2+2. I opened the boot where I had a box of original Carello fog lights, and as soon as I opened the boot, I saw a mouse scurrying out through the wheel arch. And in the Carello box, there was a litter of mice… Fortunately, the restaurant closed down soon after!“
On a more serious note, let’s forget about the red Spider mouse and take a look at something we saw in the book ‘Concept-cars et prototypes d’études Renault’ (Renault concept cars and prototypes): a drawing by Benoît Jacob of a potential restyling of the little-known Renault Sport Spider, shown below. Why did it never see the light of day? “The restyling of the Spider was something else. It was 1997 and the bodywork tools for the Spider were designed for 2,000 units: they required a lot of reworking in the factory, particularly for the surface finishes and the joint lines.“
“Rather than making new identical tools, I think it was Yves Legal who came up with the idea of taking advantage of the situation to do a phase 2. That’s how this design came about, but in the end we didn’t make a new set of tools because production of the Spider stopped at just over 1,700 units.” So now you know a little more about the Renault Spider! As for the mouse, it escaped from the drawing and is doing quite well according to the latest news…
No animals were harmed in the making of this article. And thank you to Pierre, who will recognise himself!
FREE GIFT: DOWNLOAD THE PDF OF THE SPIDER RENAULT SPORT COMMUNICATION BOOKLET (IN FRENCH) BELOW.
