Transmission
The initial transmission was a three-speed manual, described by one critic as an obsolete feature when compared to the four-speed manual of the thirteen-year-old Citroën 2CV. Ironically the new Renault 4 did not inherit its transmission from the Renault 4CV nor from anyone else: the transmission was newly developed for the car. The dash-mounted gear lever was linked via a straight horizontal rod that passed over the longitudinally mounted engine and clutch directly to the gearbox right at the front. The resulting absence of any linkage at floor level permitted a flat floor across the full width of the car's cabin. Synchromesh featured only on the top two ratios, even though the low power of the engine required frequent gear changes by any driver using normal roads and wishing to make reasonable progress. On this point Renault quickly acknowledged their error and cars produced from 1962 featured synchromesh on all three ratios. In 1968 the Renault 4 finally received a four-speed transmission.
Read more about this topic: Renault 3