LEADING FROM THE MIDDLE

The René Bonnet Djet was the world's first mid-engined production road car. Glen Waddington enjoys a momentous French Lotus rival 

-  Glen Waddington

YOU PROBABLY WOULDN'T be surprised to learn that Yuri Gagarin, Russian cosmonaut and the first human to journey into outer space, was gifted a car in return for his extraterrestrial endeavours. A shiny black Volga was quite a commodity in the Soviet Union. Yet it wasn't Gagarin's only car. Perhaps rather more surprisingly, his adventurous spirit and courageous acts earned him a sporting little French number. One at the cutting edge of technology, being the first mid-engined production road car - an innovation of this world, rather than out of it, but a remarkable machine nonetheless, and presented to a remarkable man.

Yet the reason goes beyond a hero's reward, and beyond the fact that the René Bonnet Djet was such a forward-thinking piece of engineering. You see, although the car initially was the result of private enterprise and the brainchild of a skilled engineer, as is so often the case, production investment bankrupted its originator and forced the business into the hands of another company, the name of which was an acronym for Mécanique Aviation Traction.

The suitably Space Age coupé you're looking at here is a 1966 Matra-Bonnet Djet 5S Luxe, an evolution of the car that began life under Société René Bonnet Automobiles in 1962. Its glassfibre body was provided from the outset by Matra, a specialist in composite construction among other things, such as aerospace technology and missiles. In the hope of furthering its stellar commercial aspirations, Matra gifted a Djet to Gagarin while he was on a visit to France, the itinerary of which included the Renault plant in Flins, outside Paris, where the Djet's Renault 8 Gordini engine was manufactured. That was in 1965. He promptly took it back with him to Moscow. Beyond a few PR photos around the Soviet capital's Alley of Heroes and iconic landmarks such as the Moscow State University, little has been seen of it since.