In the 90s, the Cupertino tech company Apple was not doing well. The CEO at the time, Michael Spindler, was determined to turn things around and dug deep into the box of ideas. One he pulled out was spreading the Apple brand beyond computers—with cars, for example. What sounds hard to imagine from today’s perspective has attracted attention as an heirloom.
Many manufacturers probably thought that the idea with the car sounds a bit crazy, since it was not easy for Apple to find a suitable partner. In addition, one might not want to cooperate with a supposedly sinking ship – even if, as we know today, things turned out quite differently.
The French car manufacturer Renault saw some hope in Apple despite the rather difficult times at the time and entered into the requested cooperation – but not for a high-end model. It should be a Renault Cliowhich only came back into the limelight as an heirloom many years later.
Is this the future of the automobile?
Hovering car races at 230 things on the highway
The car was intended to attract young people in particular
The collaboration with Apple came at just the right time, since the French themselves ran an advertising campaign with the slogan Young Through Excessively Prepared
– or have led JASP, which roughly translates Young through excessive preparation
called.
Apple has often been associated with young people, which fitted well with this campaign. There is even a commercial for the car and the advertising campaign:
link to YouTube content
From the outside, you wouldn’t guess that this is a car in cooperation with Apple. It’s just a Renault Clio S with a small Apple logo on the side shelf where the included laptop sits.
Yes, you read that right: That was part of the purchase price of the car Powerbook 190 Color (Apple’s line of laptops at the time). Otherwise, the car is indistinguishable from an ordinary Renault Clio S. However, it was only produced in small numbers, which is why most have never heard of it.
A Renault Clio promotional poster in collaboration with Apple.
The car given by grandpa turns out to be an Apple vehicle
It was different for a user of Foroclub.esa Spanish forum for fans of the Renault brand, who was given a car to scrap by his grandfather.
For sentimental reasons and because the car had a very low odometer reading of 61,000 kilometers, he decided to keep the Renault Clio S. The condition is extremely good for a car that is more than 20 years old and the interior looks almost new.
Upon close inspection and with the help of other forum members, the car was eventually identified as the Apple car. The lucky one decided to refurbish the car and drive it himself. However, the Powerbook 190 was no longer there.
The forum post is from 2019, but we haven’t stumbled across this curious Apple car yet. Let us know in the comments if you’ve heard of it before.
This car wasn’t the only collaboration between Renault and Apple. Years later, the car company released the Clio iMusic, which came with a fifth-generation iPod with 30GB of storage and its accompanying docking station.
2,500 hp: Tinkerers create a monster car with a tank engine
Also curious is the invention of three friends from Sweden: installing the engine of a tank in a cult limousine. You can read more about this in the article linked above.
