I received an email with a link to an article at tn.com about the completion of a very drastic redo: turning an elderly Renault Fuego into a Lamborghini. The builder’s persistence and hard work deserves a moment of recognition here, as this was not exactly an easy job, to put it lightly.
A Google translation (with some editing) of the text:
Walter Hugo Dave dreamed of creating his own car. One day, leafing through a magazine, he saw a Lamborghini Murciélago and fell in love. After a short time he began to transform his Renault Fuego in a traditional way. The metamorphosis began in 2004 and was completed in 2018.
They were fourteen years of work and dedication. Not only was the conversion limited to the appearance, it also changed the engine location. Now it is behind the passenger compartment, just like in the Italian sports car.
Walter is from San Luis capital, where he has his car. In a conversation with TN Autos he told some details: “I bought a little car, a model (of the Lamborghini), and with the measurements that magazine gave for it I started to manufacture part by part. I started with the fenders. “
The original Lambo had a width of 1.6 meters forward and 2 meters behind. “The only thing that allowed me to have that distance behind was the rear end of a Ford Sierra, so I bought one and disassembled it,” he recalled.
He also said that he extended the semiaxles of the Sierra rear end. They are half those of the Fuego and half those of the Sierra. The front end of the car, in turn, is from a Ford Taunus. “It is detached 10 cm from the ground,” he explains.
Walter says that at the beginning everyone told him he was crazy: “I started this project with my wife and my children. And a year later my dad died. He was one of those who believed in me. And I finished it. “
The “transplant” of the engine was possible thanks to his technical knowledge. In fact, he says, he had already manufactured a motorcycle and a quad bike before. “I have technical knowledge in various fields. The engine was set as it was but in the back. I made a piece that I call a torque converter, and it makes the changes come in as if the box was ahead, because the selector is left behind, next to the exhaust pipe, “he explained. (presumably “torque converter” here actually means a way to shift the gears through a new linkage).
He confesses that he currently has it saved and does not use it much. For him it has a special meaning and contains fourteen years of stories.
Also, as he says, he did it “in order to demonstrate that anyone with a little decision can achieve things that for others are impossible”.
True that!
Original story here at tn.com. All photos by Walter Hugo Dave
It goes to show that a fifteen year old Lambo design still looks new to most of us. Kudos to the builder.
Impressive work.
The Fuego has the engine ahead of the transmission, and it looks like he has kept it that way. The “torque converter” must refer to modifications to the gearshift surely ?
I agree with Uncle Mellow-
If the engine and transmission assembly were rotated, the exhaust manifold would be on the driver side (see attached photo).
Unless the Fuego gear selector used a cable mechanism, connecting the lever to the transmission would be one of the hardest tasks of the project.
I do too. I spaced that one. Fixed now.
Very, very impressive.
In the first composite image, specifically the shot on the bottom, I did see the Fuego (carcass?) to the right of the dumpster. I’m sure the answer is in the original article (which I don’t have the tools to translate right now), but I wonder what percentage of the original car (chassis, etc.) was used to create this new car. Either way, I think it’s pretty rad.
(I may be one of few CC readers who thinks the Fuego was a great-looking coupe.)
I’m pro-Fuego… and I vote.
Me too. Even knowing about the crap reliability I was looking for a used one back in the day. I wanted a 202, not a turbo, in second edition form (you can tell from the dashboard that this is that version.) They were very rare in any version. One Bay Area woman had a good one, but she wanted about twice what it was worth (she calculated her price from KBB) and it went unsold for months. Maybe I dodged a bullet there.
https://blog.consumerguide.com/my-name-is-don-sikora-and-im-a-recovering-renault-fuego-owner/
The American versions had a lot of pinstriping I would have removed if I wasn’t too busy getting it fixed.
Aaargh, too late to edit. 2.2, not 202. The turbo was an old engine. The 2.2 was all new, and a Renault with a turbo stuck on it never seemed like a good idea. Just being a Renault was bad enough already.
+1, avant-garde! Had a 1984 Fuego with the excellent 2165 cc engine, 5-speed manual, large powered fabric sunroof. Hmm, how difficult would it be to import an Argentinian Fuego GTA Max ?
I’d rather convert a Lambo into a Fuego.
That’s the first thing I thought to say.
I thought Lamborghinis converted themselves into Fuegos pretty regularly 🙂
HA!
COTD
Kudos to him for sticking with it and getting it finished!
Wow! What an awesome project. Speechless.
Not really, I’m in the mood to type…
I always liked the Fuego, but they were rare by me growing up, all domestics and pickups. My 6th grade art teacher had one when they came out. He was a young, hip guy in a school of mostly old fogies. A couple of years ago my younger son got him for art, we recently moved back to this blah place, and when he saw the last name, it’s not Mann BTW, it’s a not very common Polish name, he asked if I was his dad. (How’s that for a run-on sentence?) He still remembered that I could draw cars and trucks pretty good, and asked if I still do. Not since the 80s, though back then I did come up with a ringer for the Beretta a couple years before Chevy. Anyway, I told my son to tell him I remember the Fuego. He got a kick out of that. I’m surprised he’s still teaching there. Not a particularly great school. After that year, my son started internet school. He and we like it better. He’s straight A’s and is going to probably learn to make video games.
He doesn’t want to go into into the family business of CRAP…
My 6th grade geography teacher had a Saab 900, non-turbo. When I asked her about it said she had it because American cars weren’t very good. That annoyed everyone in the class because we all thought American everything was the best. Not in the 80s for sure. But I liked it’s weird (to me at the time when used to mostly GM midsizers) shape.
He turned a sow’s ear into a silk purse.
One hell of a guy!