1907 Renault Model AI 35/45 Runabout

In 1905 Marcel Renault built a 12.3-liter car for the Vanderbilt Cup race on Long Island, and although the car failed to finish, it went on to win the Eagle Rock Hill Climb in New York later in the year. In 1906, Renault introduced the 4-cylinder, 13-liter Type AK, which was entered in the two-day Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France and eventually won this grueling event by some distance. Renault's many early victories impressed William Kissam Vanderbilt Jr., often called 'Willie K.,' who was one of the first people to purchase a Renault 35/45 HP Runabout built on the lighter Renault AI chassis. The Renault AI 35/45 HP model has come to be so linked with Vanderbilt that it is now often called, more simply, a Vanderbilt Renault.

Famed tenor and antique car collector James Melton discovered this Vanderbilt Renault in the late 1940s still in good condition. The car as bought and sold a few times before it was acquired by Cunningham factory driver Bill Spear, who often used the car until selling it to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum in 1957. The Renault resided in the care of the Speedway Museum for more than six decades. In 2015, the Renault was purchased by its current owner, who rebuilt the transmission and restored the car to top running order.

Period photographs success that this may have been the car driven to victory by Louis Raffolovitch in the Brighton 24hrs of 1907. It is the only car with an original large fuel tank with oversized filler neck that is clearly seen on the winning car. The car was raced without its aluminum tail which left the tank fully visible. The tank and filler caps are original and have the factory stampings.

In the care of its current owner, the car has been driven on several Paso Robles tours, the Pebble Beach Tour d'Elegance, and competed in the Wilbraham Hill Climb where it scored the fastest time for a pre-WWI racer.

At the 2016 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, this Renault the Pre-War Racing class, The Phil Hill Trophy and the Revs institute award.

The engine is the 7.5-liter L-head four-cylinder unit developing approximately 65 horsepower and backed by a four-speed progressive transmission. There are mechanical hub and service brakes and a semi-elliptic leaf spring suspension.