30 years of remote unlocking of car doors
02/29/2012
1982 - seemingly only the day before yesterday, but already a good while ago. We were all thirty years younger.
In April, the Malvinas War. Spain joins NATO. The first German test-tube baby is born in Erlangen. Ronald Reagan in Berlin. Helmut Kohl becomes the new head of government of the Federal Republic of Germany ("Skohl!"). Solidarnosc is banned in Poland. First artificial heart. Commodore C 64 for Arpanet (predecessor of the Internet, since 1962). Chernobyl. And, and, and - including this: the first series-produced car model with electronic remote unlocking of the doors.
Well, almost unimaginable today, but a pioneering feat at the time: walk up to the car, press a button, the vehicle confirms with a horn signal or light signal, you open and get in. Back then, it was pure witchcraft!
It was the Renault Fuego Coupé (built from 1980 to 1986, in some countries until 1992, mechanically based on the successful R 18) that was first equipped with a remote unlocking system for its two doors as standard from October 1982, initially separately from the actual key.
The remote release (on 433 MHz) was invented and developed by a certain Paul Lipschutz, who also gave his child the name (after the first letters of his first name and surname) that is still commonly used in France today: PLIP. It even sounded apt.
Initially, there was also an infrared key. Nowadays, practically all cars are equipped with a remote unlocking system that works together with the central locking and immobilizer - a blessing when it works and a nuisance when there are problems. We'll leave the problems of restorers and owners who want to revive a barn find when neither the manufacturer nor the dealer network still exist for another time.
