Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Bell
GP, you were a glutton for punishment! 
The model I always liked and could happily own now is the 16- especially a TX.
See loads of Talisman saloons and the odd estate on autoroute travels. Nice. Regie seem to have re-found their mojo.... The formerly ubiquitous Pug 508 autoroute cruiser seems to have fallen out of favour.  |
Well, the 12 (provided new) was better than the leggy Mk3 Cortina (about 60k miles iirc but that was a lot back then.)
That was flogging lubricants for ELF so as the fleet was changed everyone got Renaults partly because the Renault dealers were supposed to use ELF oils and there were lots of deals to be done for cheap "loans" to get new equipment for the workshops.
The 14 and the 18 happened because after ELF I was in the garage trade (Motor Caravans mainly) and the parent company had a couple of Renault dealerships at the time.
Never had a problem with the 14 or the 18 although as you might imagine they were not kept for long before being sold on.
We also had a R4 van (interesting) and for a while I have the random use (but mine out of hours and at weekends) of an R6 which was often interesting to travel in as the push-pull gear change through the dash had a habit of popping off its connection (I use that term loosely - very loosely most of the time) under the bonnet.
On the plus side as it sat just under the bonnet, it was easy to get to and reconnect. One became quite proficient quite quickly. But for that the 6 was quite interesting. The problems was that to make it motor a bit in a straight line (corners were fun at any speed) required some swift gear changes ... I'm sure you will all see the problem there ....
Way back just after I got my licence a friend of my parents rolled up for a visit in his newish R16 TS. He was silly enough to ask me If I wanted to take it out for a drive.
Nice car for the times. I didn't push it as he was sitting alongside and it took me a while to feel in any way comfortable with the column shift. Nevertheless it still felt good in the comfort stakes as well as performance compared to my old man's Cortina GT.