Renault TG Nervastella “Surrealist car inspired by Salvador Dalí”. Made in France (export to USA) in 1930, V8, 100 hp, 4200 cc.
This model was ordered as a hunting car by Mr. Astor, owner of the Hotel Waldorf Astoria in New York. Its surrealist colours are inspired by the Spanish artist Salvador Dalí.
The Nervastella is a large automobile constructed by Renault between 1930 and 1937. It was used as a state car and pictures of the President of the French Republic sitting in a Nervastella can therefore be seen in newsreels from the mid-1930s.
The car was a smaller brother to the Renault Reinastella which had been launched a year earlier, but the Nervastella was technically more advanced, and with a 3,350 mm (131.9 in) wheelbase it was still, by the standards of the time and place, large.
In the early 1930s Renault introduced a number of models with names that ended in “-stella”, which was a conscious reference to the Latin word for a “star”. “Nerva” is a reference to a Roman emperor, and Nerva, Spain.
The car was powered by a 8-cylinder in-line engine, but the size of the power unit changed through the car’s production run.
The Nervastella was launched with a 4241 cc engine for which 100 PS (74 kW) of power was listed, achieved at a then impressively quick 3300 rpm.
The engine size grew to 4825 cc in 1933 and increased again, for 1935, to 5448 cc. The 1933 increase was not accompanied by any increase in claimed maximum power for the standard Nervastella, and even the 1935 engine capacity increase only raised the listed output to 110 PS (81 kW).
