This feature story was earlier published in 2005. It is part of a looking back on 15 years of PreWarCar history. And Rutger Booy suggested to show this piece as today it is exactly 104 years ago that unsinkable Titanic went down...with at least one magnificent Renault CB Limousine plus maybe several others.
EARLIER TEXT:
When we saw this cross-section of the Titanic, we immediately started dreaming: what if? What if the forward cargo hatches of the Titanic were filled with motorcars? What if these cars could still be salvaged from the bottom of the see? What if…?
But then we have to face reality. Contrary to the layout of the hold, according to the cargo manifest there was only one Renault motorcar on board Titanic when she sunk in 1912. And it was crated, not hoisted aboard as depicted in the 1997 James Cameron movie of the disaster. And what would remain of the car after all these years on the bottom of the sea? Probably not very much. Most of the wood will have been rotten away; metal parts rusted thoroughly and very likely all the decks collapsed on top of each other. The only parts that will have survived are the brass headlamps, as evidenced by the brass parts that were found on the Titanic during the 1987 exploration. Will we ever know? In a way we hope not, as we think that the site of Titanic should remain as it is, as a memorial to all the things that went down when she sank. Ahh, but we can still dream? Can we?
(Cargo plans courtesy 7C’s Press/Titanic Historical Society & Titanic Museum).