This Old Renault Van/Truck Is More Flexible Than A Rubber Gymnast: Cold Start

When it comes to commercial vehicle design, the venerable box-on-wheels is hard to beat. If there’s anything that comes close, I think it may be the flat-tray-on-wheels-with-a-cabin-up-front concept, which I guess we’d call a “chassis-cab,” because that can become a box-on-wheels or damn near anything else. This 1957 brochure for the Renault 1000kg-14000kg commercial vehicle shows this flexibility astonishingly well.

Like all mid-century (well this one is a bit prior to that, being released in 1947) French commercial vehicles, this thing is weirdly appealing and characterful for a workhorse machine. It’s got an expressive face and feels sort of like a large animal of some pachydermic kind.

Here’s a diagram of it in its most basic, stripped-down form, so you can appreciate the base from which all of these variants sprang:

That’s about as basic as it gets! A cab and chassis. So let’s look at the variants shown in this old brochure, because, dammit, we know how to have fun.

Okay, let’s start with the basics, a nice, simple van body, with solid sides that have a nice inset little stamping, perfect for your branding needs, so you can put 24 HOUR ORNITHOLOGY or CHILI BY THE FOOT or whatever you’d like on there.

Another van, but this time with a sliding side door! I think you could get these on either side, perhaps both? I’m not positive, but I’d think so.

Another van with a sliding door, but with a high roof, because you may be hauling grandfather clocks or baby giraffes or doors or something.

Maybe you want a van, and you want ventilation, but you have a strange anti-window bias? Boy are you in luck, because you can get yourself a can with open upper sides that have canvas roll-up covers! Holy crap, that’s breezy! I wonder what the use case was for these? Vending stuff from the van, like a food truck?

If that canvas got you excited, Renault can go even further, with a whole canvas rear over a truck bed. These are very military-seeming.

I love this flatbed variant though I’m really curious how those big pots of mulchy whatever stay in place as they drive.

Look at this! A cow-hauling variant! Complete with cattle-friendly ramp and everything!

I love this one; it’s all full of compartments and hatches and drawer’s like R2-D2’s torso. Is this for transport, or some kind of mobile store?

I really love this one; it’s a food truck sort of thing, but all wood! I wish I had a color photo of this one, because I bet it’s lovely, like a little mobile cabin.

Of course there’s a people-hauling variant, complete with a nice big roof rack for the kids or luggage.

This all-sides-fold-down pickup version is a very useful design, but I’m more taken by how the rear cab bulkhead looks; do they all have those stampings? It looks like it’s made of a big bar of chocolate. Also, why were these old trucks always so stingy with rear window sizes?

Another animal-hauler, this one for pigs, it seems. That side door looks sort of awkward, though, based on how those dudes are wrestling with that pig.

I love that this brochure shows some genuinely bonkers stuff, too, like these elaborate custom bodies. I think Laines Sofil is a yarn company? I think that shape may be some sort of stylized yarn-ball design, like yarn with a central band holding it together? And are those knitting needles coming out of the back and sides?

This one is just more of your basic bonkers pre-jet-age food truck, with a…horse head on the front? Is that a horse up there? I love the blob-shaped windows.

What a sleek bus! And all the skylights! The faked fenders are kind of fun, too. I wonder if these had any real aero advantage over the basic ones.

And finally, yes, there was a camper version. The roofline is especially interesting here – are those slots windows or vents?

Damn, that’s a lot. What a flexible, amazing machine!