Hino: the clandestine Renault from Japan

Car manufacture under licence abroad is almost as old as the motor industry itself, and there have been some remarkable collaborations. The Japanese-built Renault 4CV is a great example of the weird-but-true kind.

 

 

The 4CV was launched in 1946 in Paris in a yellow colour and soon nicknamed ‘Motte de beurre’ or ‘Butterball’ due to its hue and rounded shape. With the availability of paint being limited, the yellow supposedly came from an old stock of paint for Wehrmacht combat vehicles left by the occupying forces… Whether that is true we don’t know, but we do know that the 4CV, with its 760cc, 18hp rear-mounted four-cylinder engine, became the first French car to hit the 1,000,000 mark in production. And they didn’t only sell in France; the rest of Europe loved them, and they were exported to the US. 

 

 

 

Japan was an interesting market also, and Renault was eager to set up a joint venture. A relatively small local manufacturer of tracked vehicles and diesel engines named Hino was eventually chosen to produce the 4CV under licence, initially with at least 25 per cent of parts locally produced, but more and more once production was in full swing. These yellow Hino 4CVs were made for taxi drivers with a few modifications: stronger bumpers, larger indicators and rear window, filler cap moved from under the bonnet to the outside, and a different front grille.

 

The cooperation didn’t all go smoothly though, as we read on a model-specific website: “From 1955 onwards, the Japanese proved that they had their own conception of the deal, modifying the car without informing Renault in France, limiting the payment of royalties of the parts sent from France and then deciding to export ‘their’ 4CV to all the Asian markets that would open the door to them, to which the French retorted that they were perfectly capable of distributing their cars over there and that they wouldn’t authorise Hino to do so.”

 

Renault was not amused and ordered them to stop production, which simply didn’t happen. Hino continued production of the car until 1963, when the last of almost 35,000 Japanese-made 4CVs rolled off the assembly line… 

 

 

(Words Jeroen Booij, picture source unknown)