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Maybe I should just list every vehicle I drove in HS and college. (all stock photos)
1 - the aforementioned ‘78 Datsun F10
2 - 1968 Mercedes Benz 200 Diesel
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3 - 1980 Toyota Corona
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4 - 1986 Isuzu Trooper II
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I dunno about the Datsun. My dad had a B210...I dunno the year, but it would have been appx 77-79 <shrug>...I know I was a kid.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peruvian
I remember a 2x2 piece of plywood on the driver’s floorboard bc it rusted through.
Sure it was a piece of shit...but he drove that thing into the ground. It had to have > 200k miles before giving up the ghost.
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Just to loop back to this, I told a guy today at the kids’ soccer game who was admiring the above-pictured AMG blob in the lot that the shape was first pioneered by the Pontiac Aztek, and to think about that for a minute.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mazderati
He’s now thinking wagon.
The Aztec did give an excellent performance in Breaking Bad
Nice to see Renault finally getting some love in this thread. Anyone who thinks Japanese trucks and Chevy Citations deserve any mention here obviously never shared the back seat of a Le Car with 3 siblings through 6 states.
Ever since Le George's epic rant on Seinfeld a person might be forgiven for thinking the lowly R5 deserves mention among the worst ever on its own, but that person would be wrong. I mention the R5 because, while it was bad--worse than the Alliance, the Encore (really Renault? an encore?), the Fuego, the Medallion, and Premier--it was actually a Hudge improvement over a whole set of Renaults which were never even named and got by on numbers alone.
The R10 with its rear engine was quite bad and the 12 and 15 certainly lacked commercial success. But by far and without competition the worst car ever was the Renault 16. These cars so successfully combined unreliability, ugliness, unobtainable parts, bad performance and quirky design choices that they became giveaways within a sub-culture that was so oppressed that its former members bear the scars to this day.
I have cousins and other family members who can sometimes mention the name Renault, but never while looking each other quite in the eye. Words don't do justice to the familial shame of even being related to someone who was suckered in by the inclusion of a free parts car and somehow stayed with it even after spending long hours of a night on the side of the road with young children, hoping it was just vapor lock. Again.
Renaults had an ability to shake a person's faith in reason and make them question the foundations of parental wisdom. They set innocent children down the ugly path of existential philosophy, never quite admitting their lives' central question had become: "if the people who chose to make me also chose these Renault 16's, what does that say about me?"
Membership in this oppressed subculture of Renault 16 owners meant having an extended family which, moreso than any real extended family, no one would ever choose--and yet, somehow someone did. By extended family I mean the cars. Downtrodden as they were, the people were never the problem. They just reflected the horror that was the R16 and the sad truths it revealed about the human condition. Addiction. Denial. Unfounded loyalty so strong it made Stockholm Syndrome intuitive to twelve year olds.
My mother managed to find humor. She recently recalled the time we were driving past a salvage yard and someone pointed out the R16 in the parking lot, to which I truthfully stated "It's probably waiting to get in." 3 decades on she still laughs. And I still don't.
The first time I ever skied we piled into my dad's friend's Chevy Citation to go get a rental discount on Easter Sunday at a tiny hill with two lifts and a platter pull. The Citation seemed like a fine car to me.
Let's hope this one finally got in (and its former occupants got the help they needed).
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Shit, we had a Le car when i was small
my mom HATED that French shit box
i thought it was cool because it was orange and had a white racing stripe, but i was in elementary school, so what did i know
Wow, quality rant right there. HOF.Quote:
Originally Posted by jono
L’applause, monsieur.Quote:
Originally Posted by jono
So after all of this, no one mentions British vehicles?
My wife came to the party with a ‘69 MGBGT. Nine years old with 35k on the clock.
Would blow alternator diodes about once a quarter.
Whenever you fired it up, first question was “what electrical parts aren’t working today?”
Battery was two six volts wired in series. Located under the “back seat” which was usable only if you were under 5’ tall and legs were amputated above the knee.
Disc front and drum rear brakes would slow you down as well as throwing out an anchor
The inside vents pulled air in across the engine for extra cooling.
The dual SU carbs would not stay in tune for more than a month.
My “best” repair experience was when I had to move it to get my moto out of the garage so I could go for a ride
Brakes went to the floor - wheel cylinder blown.
Got it back in garage, got out the knockoff wrench and hammer, started pounding on knockoff.
Now I see drips coming from under the back.
It’s gasoline
The more I pound, the more drips form.
Drain the tank, pull it out, take it to the radiator shop. The whole bottom is rotted.
Go home, start calling wrecking yards, found one 50 miles away. Go get it, get wheel cylinder kit and both sides of brake shoes on the way home.
Replace the tank, rebuild the wheel cylinder and replace brake shoes..
I drive it around the block, all seems well.
Next AM, wife pulls it out of garage, and...brakes go to the floor. The other wheel cylinder blew.
Replaced both wheel cylinders (fortunately no fluid on the new shoes), put shoes back on.
Turned the key - battery dead. Alternator blown...
Aaaaaahhhhh!
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Originally Posted by jono
My buddy had a piece of shit Early-'80's Mercury wagon. When it finally broke down he was like, "no problem, I've been expecting this." He opened the glove compartment and took out a screwdriver. I was wondering how he planned to fix it with just a screwdriver, but he just took the plates off it and then we started walking.
30+ years ago when I had that ultimate of ski bum jobs, ya know the kind where you never work while the lifts are spinning, delivering pizza in Steamboat. I had a rule to never spend more on a car than I could make in a week so I went through a string of $300-500 cars. Sometimes I'd put tires or brake pads on them but nothing that cost more than a shift to earn usually and the only tool I kept in the car was a screwdriver. I always kept the title in the glove compartment so that when the thing crapped out I could just sign it, put it on the dashboard, take the plates off and walk away. I went through some great cars with the most fun being a 79 Celica GT with a 283 and Muncie 4 speed swap. I was going around a corner and the front end collapsed and dug into the road, I backed it off the side and left it and it was gone by the morning.Quote:
Originally Posted by ötzi
What's funny are the folks that own more than one of the same crappy car. My dad owned about 5 of the Chevy Vega. Neighbor down the street had at least two of the Le Car. Another neighbor somewhere else had two Citations. Sometimes it's a case of getting parts cars that turn out to be better than the one you are trying to fix.
All of those cars could be had for about $200 in decent shape and junk yards were littered with them. If you had some tools and some wrenching skills you could keep a car limping along for a LONG time for the price of a few bottles of liquor.Quote:
Originally Posted by riser3
They have been.Quote:
Originally Posted by TBS
And I had no idea Renault 16 was ever sold in the states.
Talking of Renaults I had a 5 GT Turbo for a while in the UK - was a little rocket ship for its time.
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My mom hated the Le Car, too, but my dad thought it was great. Something about the fuel economy and outrageous caster angle on the front wheels made him grin ear to ear right up until it was totalled in a rear-ending that seemed oddly appropriate. In a wild coincidence, his sister's family happened to drive past the aftermath and my cousin saw the car and correctly identified it, but was not believed. I think he trades on that to this day. One of thousands of little Renault touch-stones in the family.Quote:
Originally Posted by ::: :::
Thank you, sir. As another point of perspective on this: at 15 I had a classmate whose family had just bought a Yugo and it looked like he was going to be driving that and I was going to be driving a Renault 16. He was pretty smug about it, and I couldn't blame him.Quote:
Originally Posted by Meadow Skipper
Sadly, this is all pure truth, no embellishment needed. If anything, it's the edited version. Writing it was actually so cathartic I had to show my wife. She only ever saw the last R16, which my grandparents stored but didn't drive by the time we met (though the named Renaults persisted). She spent a solid 2 hours remembering every Renault saga she could and cackling with the purest joy. Schadenfraude or not, it was almost worth it. Almost.
That car and it's mid-engined brother were objects of longing in my family. They seemed awesome but obtainable in a way that something more reliable, like a Pinto or a Vega, just never was.Quote:
Originally Posted by PNWbrit
Yes. Exactly. It was still amusing.Quote:
Originally Posted by fatnslow
My Dad did all kinds of work to his fleet of successive Vegas. Including getting steel cylinder sleeves for two engines.
Looks good. Steering wheel on wrong side.Quote:
Originally Posted by PNWbrit
You guys nailed the main reasons, but there's also a combination of sunk-cost and "the devil you know" that makes it a moving target as to whether this was a logical use of resources or just a painful boondoggle. Probably more amusing to watch when you know it's a little of both.Quote:
Originally Posted by riser3
Guy I knew in Boston had a Le Car and rallied the fuck out of it around the city at night, we both worked late and lived in the same building, going across town for late-night grub was always a blast.
the best thing to do with a Vega especialy the fastback is to drop in a small block
I asked Brit a few pages ago about automotive products from the Midlands and he nominated ALL of them. That count?Quote:
Originally Posted by TBS
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Originally Posted by TBS
Lots of great laughs in this thread.Quote:
Originally Posted by jono
I dropped a Recaro racing seat in an encore s. Didn't make it any less of a POS.