The Renault Reinastella is an

automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded ...

created by the

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

car maker

Renault Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English; legally Renault S.A.) is a French multinational automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company produces a range of cars and vans, and in the past has manufactured ...

. The original Reinastella was a luxury-class car manufactured between 1929 and 1933. The car was unveiled at the 1928

Paris Motor Show The Paris Motor Show (french: Mondial de l'Automobile) is a biennial auto show in Paris. Held during October, it is one of the most important auto shows, often with many new production automobile and concept car debuts. The show presently take ...

as the Renault Renahuit. The original Reinastella was the first of Renault's Stella series, high-end luxury automobiles intended to compete with contemporary marques such as

Hispano-Suiza Hispano-Suiza () is a Spanish automotive–engineering company. It was founded in 1904 by Marc Birkigt and Damian Mateu as an automobile manufacturer and eventually had several factories in Spain and France that produced luxury cars, aircraft en ...

Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...

, Daimler,

Lincoln Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States * Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England * Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S. * Lincol ...

Packard Packard or Packard Motor Car Company was an American luxury automobile company located in Detroit, Michigan. The first Packard automobiles were produced in 1899, and the last Packards were built in South Bend, Indiana in 1958. One of the "Th ...

, and

Cadillac The Cadillac Motor Car Division () is a division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM) that designs and builds luxury vehicles. Its major markets are the United States, Canada, and China. Cadillac models are distributed ...

. The Stellas, or Grand Renaults, were marked with a star riveted to the

radiator Radiators are heat exchangers used to transfer thermal energy from one medium to another for the purpose of cooling and heating. The majority of radiators are constructed to function in cars, buildings, and electronics. A radiator is always ...

grille above the famous Renault lozenge, a reference to models with names that ended in "- stella", which was a conscious reference to the Latin word for a "star"., while "reina" is Spanish for "queen". The Reinastella was, at 5.3 meters (17 feet) long and 2 meters (six feet) wide, the biggest car ever produced by Renault upon its market debut. It weighed about 2.5

ton Ton is the name of any one of several units of measure. It has a long history and has acquired several meanings and uses. Mainly it describes units of weight. Confusion can arise because ''ton'' can mean * the long ton, which is 2,240 pounds ...

s and was the first Renault to be fitted with a 7.1 liter, 8-

cylinder A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an ...

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ...

, delivering a top speed of . It was also the first Renault to have its radiator placed ahead of the engine, leading the way for all future Renaults. The hood of the Reinastella was longer than that of the later Nervastella and Vivastella, but like those later models the Reinastella was available in different trims: a closed sedan, berline, and

town car The Lincoln Town Car is a model line of full-size luxury sedans that was marketed by the Lincoln division of the American automaker Ford Motor Company. Deriving its name from a limousine body style, Lincoln marketed the Town Car from 1981 to ...

. Coachbuilding was by leading French

coachwork A coachbuilder or body-maker is someone who manufactures bodies for passenger-carrying vehicles.Construction has always been a skilled trade requiring a relatively lightweight product with sufficient strength. The manufacture of necessarily ...

ers, exhibiting the luxurious fittings of the golden age of classic bodywork. These models were produced until 1931. In 1933, a

coupé A coupe or coupé (, ) is a passenger car with a sloping or truncated rear roofline and two doors. The term ''coupé'' was first applied to horse-drawn carriages for two passengers without rear-facing seats. It comes from the French past parti ...

, the Reinasport, was introduced. It was a lighter and more economical car, designed to compete with

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and

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models in the difficult economic environment of the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. In its day, the Reinastella had the same cachet of luxury and privilege in the

Francophone French became an international language in the Middle Ages, when the power of the Kingdom of France made it the second international language, alongside Latin. This status continued to grow into the 18th century, by which time French was the l ...

world that Rolls-Royce had in Britain and America. As a result, it may sometimes appear in contemporary popular media as a symbol of wealth. For example, it appears in ''

The Adventures of Tintin ''The Adventures of Tintin'' (french: Les Aventures de Tintin ) is a series of 24 bande dessinée#Formats, ''bande dessinée'' albums created by Belgians, Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi, who wrote under the pen name Hergé. The series was one ...

'' series of

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comics ''

The Blue Lotus ''The Blue Lotus'' (french: link=no, Le Lotus bleu) is the fifth volume of ''The Adventures of Tintin'', the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Commissioned by the conservative Belgian newspaper for its children's supplement , it wa ...

'' (1936) and '' The Crab with the Golden Claws'' (1941). (The depictions may be of a Vivastella in

taxi A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choic ...

configuration.) The high proportion of

aluminium Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It ha ...

used in construction made all the Stellas desirable for

recycling Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. The Energy recycling, recovery of energy from waste materials is often included in this concept. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability t ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. Only a few hundred examples of the vehicle were produced, and most of those that survive are in

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make th ...

collections. The name was also used for a prototype flying car in 1992. The flying car made its public debut in

Circle-Vision 360° Circle-Vision 360° is a film format developed by The Walt Disney Company that uses projection screens which encircle the audience. Circle-Vision 360° developed from the Circarama format, which uses eleven 16 mm projectors. The first Circarama ...

film, Le Visionarium, an attraction at the

Disneyland Park Disneyland is a theme park in Anaheim, California. Opened in 1955, it was the first theme park opened by The Walt Disney Company and the only one designed and constructed under the direct supervision of Walt Disney. Disney initially envision ...

Disneyland Resort Paris Disneyland Paris is an entertainment resort in Chessy, France, east of Paris. It encompasses two theme parks, resort hotels, Disney Nature Resorts, a shopping, dining and entertainment complex, and a golf course. Disneyland Park is the origin ...

, which Renault sponsored from 1992 until 2002. The prototype still can be seen at some special auto fairs in Europe.

References

{{Renault timeline 1921-1960 Renault vehicles Cars introduced in 1929