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End of an era
At the end of the 1960s, my love of cars was kindled by brochures that my father brought home from work and that my grandmother got from an acquaintance. By now, half a century has gone by and it seems that the issuing of brochures by car manufacturers is coming to an end. At Renault, too, this tradition has come to an end.
If you take a look at the Renault sites in different countries in the world, you can still download the brochures for all models. It is nice to digitally leaf through the brochures of models we do not know in our own country. Of course, this documentation can be stored on the hard disk. But still, it cannot be compared with holding paper and turning the pages with a high expectation of what will be shown on the next page.
The scent of freshly printed paper is also part of the three-dimensional experience that a car brochure offers. An experience that cannot be matched by any digital source. Brochures tell a historical story. And the examples that are still being issued today will fulfil the same role in a while.
A whole world of collectors is based around the brochure. People who keep everything from one make and others who go for a particular era or type of car. They meet each other at fairs and especially through sales channels on the Internet to search through the duplicate copies to find exactly those which can expand their own collection. It sounds almost romantic... Actually, it is.
Brochures are linked to a period. That is why a brochure from 1913 that I recently found on Epoqu'auto is very different from one from a Renault 4 from 1961 or from the present Arkana. I understand that in these digital times the printing of leaflets is a considerable cost item for car manufacturers. But a brochure is more than the cost of producing it. I think back nostalgically to the sixties, seventies and eighties, when a new brochure was compiled for each model year after year. With new photos and a different layout. Fortunately, I have a large number of these in my cupboard, so I can step back in time whenever I want.
Because no matter what the digital world takes away from us, history always remains...
Tony Vos, editor-in-chief/publisher Losange Magazine
