Marketing Manager - Bridge Classic Cars
Julian has fitted 2 new springs to our 2010 Renault Wind Roadster.
Also, we have recently been sent some information from Stephen Norman, Worldwide Marketing Director, Renault, 2007-2014 who had this to say about the Wind:
“Not many people know this … !
In the years around 2010, several manufacturers were indebted to Webasto [principally known for sunroofs but in fact suppliers of many more sub-assemblies than that], because of their inability to call off the number of sunroof-equipped cars they had committed to, and that Webasto had tooled up to produce.
It is to be understood that it was not a sunroof problem but rather one of overall production volume of which sunroof-equipped cars.
In such cases significant impairment has to be paid and of course piece-costs go through the roof [sic].
Webasto had developed a retractable roof system that was both innovative and fast [12 seconds], and could be used on the move. They hawked it around the motor industry and had difficulty in finding a taker, it is easy to see why.
Renault decided to engineer a car around this roof system and both add an innovative model to the 2007 Twingo II offering [light-years away from the original Twingo], and to solve their call-off problem on this major supplier.
Thus was born the Renault Wind ….
For the anecdote both the British and the Dutch resisted the name and its connection to flatulence, but objective Marketing Research threw up no connections whatsoever. CQFD about people in the motor industry!
There was a beautiful Gordini Series Renault Wind too, very desirable at the time.”
Stephen Norman
Worldwide Marketing Director, Renault, 2007-2014
