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The Misunderstood Renault LeCar
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Comments
He used a small sledgehammer.
This was after he had tried everything. At least he saved the block!
But it was my father's car and he had just bought and installed a $200 set of seat covers (in a $200 car that I was reducing to scrap value) so I felt some pressure.
Unfortunately this trick is useless if you can't get those %^@#&* angled head studs out.
Today's Renault is a wonderful company. Their cars are reliable, solid, if not still slightly quirky, and unmistakeably French. I really hope they'll sell the Laguna or something similar over in the US someday.
Renault back in the 80's had dire reliability, but I still see plenty of Peugeot 505's hanging around. In one of the richest streets in Austin, this family still has a early 90's 406.
Peugeot's one of my favorite car companies of all, and I'd like to see them over here even more than Renault.
Funny thing, though. It had the engine in the back.
Either that, or the put the body on backwards. You know, those De Gaulle socialist years.
Plus the turbo seemed bigger than the engine itself...
(Jeez, you guys are too easy)....
They were never imported to the states that I know of.
Sr. Shiftright, who's that importing company? Sun International or something?
I have NO idea how they are titled in California, maybe it's not an issue.
Very cool cars, though the maintenance issues scare me a bit. It's a shame that there is no Japanese equivalent (please don't bring up the Shogun). A mid engine, teensy, hatchback with say, the MR2 drivetrain. I guess a rebodied MR2 would do the trick.
How about something that looks like a GTI built on a Fiero backbone. Hmmmm. I did get to see a mid-engine Rabbit once at the Eloy Grand Prix (in Eloy, Arizona...natch). Very cool.
I don't think it was LeCar, that would have been stupid. "Renault the car".
Now there are TWO very different R5 turbos. One is the R5 Turbo, a mid-engine, rear wheel drive little beast putting out 160 HP from 1.4 liters (can you say "hand grenade"?).
The tamer turbo is called the R5 GT Turbo, and is much more common and probably marketed in Canada at one time. That has only 120 HP. I remember driving one and it was actually a lot of fun. The turbo was this tiny, tiny Garrett, stuffed into a very very VERY tight engine compartment. It was so tight in there they actually used a Solex carburetor so that they could get it out of the way of the rest of the plumbing.
The mid-engine R5s are rare...I think they sold something like 1,000 of them in France over the course of quite a few years.
If you saw an R5 GT turbo for sale for $29 or something, I'd buy it if I were you. They are fun.
It was a little too raw even for me, so I bought a Sundance Turbo instead. Have to say the engine was bulletproof (sold the car at over 100,000 miles), but the shift linkage was another story.
I still like turbo's, treat them right and they last. Well, maybe not in an older Renault.
They had loads of fun running up and down the M1 at 80-90mph.
Till the thing burned to a crisp!
Bill
Is it true that a 2CV will stand upright with a wheel removed? Seems like I heard that somewhere.
Didn't those big Citroens also have easily removeable outer-body panels? For some reason, I thought the outer door skins and rear fenders were easily removed.
The rear fenders were the only easily removable part...you could take the fender off with I believe just one bolt. This was done because you needed to remove the fender to take the rear wheels off. The rest of the car's body was conventional more or less.
There WERE cars built with hydraulic jacks....the very large and not often seen MGs from the 1930s, the SA and VA and WA series, had a system called a "Jack-All" (I think that was the name) and other British cars used this system as well. It "sucked a big one" as we say in New York and never worked. Most sane restorers pitch it over a fence first chance they get.
http://www.feelgoodcars.com/media/press/web/SJEAA/SJEAA.html
We had two in our family as relatives worked for the "new" company. At first, around 1958 or so, Renault did very well in the USA, actually OUTSELLING Volkswagon for 3-4 months in around 1960. People loved the Dauphine, since it was prettier, quieter, faster, roomier and more economical than the VW. What is wasn't, however, was BETTER than the VW. Not by a long shot. And at that time, VW service and parts was also far superior.
So Renault kicked butt for a few month and had celebration parties, and VW just waited until the pate hit the fan. Which it did. Renault customer satisfaction went down the drain, and the company refused to install competent American management to deal with it. So things went from bad to worse.
You cannot sell a car in the USA unless you have the service and parts network to back it up. Renault learned this, so did Peugeot, Lotus and Fiat. Other imports just escaped being deported by the skin of their teeth (Jaguar, Alfa for a time).
Actually the Renault to own would be either the 4CV (looks something like a Morris Minor) or the R8 Renault Gordini, a boxy successor to the Dauphine that actually ran pretty well and was a lot of fun to drive. By the time of the R8 though, Renault was already in serious trouble.
Some dork in our high school had one. He would drive around the school holding down the horn while he toggled the switch back and forth.
DO DAH DO DAH DO DAH..like a British police car.
Finally one of the school bullies got tired of this, had a "chat" with him and the music ended after that.
And I saw a guy start one with a crank one time in a parking lot! Hilarous...