Renault R41xx/R42xx

The Renault R41xx and R42xx are a range of coaches and buses built from 1949 by the bus division of the French maker Renault, which became SAVIEM LRS in 1955. After the success of the ZP series, the first series coach with forward control, released in 1934, Renault became the first French coach maker, and it began studying a rear-engined model. The engineers found a different path, a horizontal engine lying in the wheelbase under the floor; Renault studied a new horizontal six-cylinder of 105 by 120 mm, the R.568 of 6,234 cubic centimetres, which gave 105 hp at 2,500 rpm. The prototype was tested at the end of 1948 and the definitive R4190, whose name means Renault diesel, was presented at the Paris show in October 1949, directly competing with the Chausson APH1. Its height of 3.28 m proved a problem and a version lowered by 127 mm followed in March 1950; the R4191 of August 1950 changed the brakes from Westinghouse to Bendix, and the engine, nicknamed lazy, became the 120 hp R.572 in the R4192 of April 1952, of which almost 1,500 were built until it became the ZR20 in 1958. A trolleybus version, the R 4231, was made for Madrid.