shot in Mexico and posted by RiveraNotario
CC Cohort Day: Peugeot 403 and Renault 11 GTX
– Posted on April 7, 2023
shot in Mexico and posted by RiveraNotario
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Of the two, I’ll favor the one on the right (Peugeot?) At least it has old school looks. Although Renault alliance temporarily saved AMC, it produced some really ugly and troublesome cars! A friend (whose father had long worked hor AMC) got an ALLIANCE. In the few months he owned it, it was in the shop for repairs more than on the road.
This may be the first time I’ve seen a little Fuego “fire” in the Renault 11. We had an ’85 Encore (U.S. name) hatch that was a great car for us, but in the guise of this 11 GTX, I can see a little of the common Renault design language that made the Fuego such an attractive car to me.
+1 The Encore made a lot of practical sense. An excellent design, compromised by indifferent quality control.
I like them both. I have good memories of the Renault/AMC Alliance.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/auto-biography/my-alliance-with-the-franco-american-motors-alliance/
Those old Pugs were really good cars, Renaults not so much and are now a lot rarer.
In 1962 when I was 10 years old, my dad decided the family needed to replace our second car, a 1957 Volvo Duett wagon. The Volvo had a habit of the double rear doors opening without warning, and after a Cub Scout fell out the back of the car while taking a bunch of scouts to a den meeting, he traded it in to the local foreign car dealer in Bethesda, MD [just outside Washington DC], and bought a 1 year old Peugeot 403 for his own car. [The scout was not injured.]
But this little car was not a typical 403. It was imported into the USA as a new car, a rare 7-passenger [3-row seating with jump seats] wagon known as a Familiale in France. Dad said the original owner worked for the French embassy and was able to go around the Peugeot importer to order this Familiale, as they were not officially available in North America. He always said it was the only one sold new in the USA.
Dad sold the Peugeot to a neighbor in 1969. The neighbor wanted the Peugeot because he and his family were heading down to South America for missionary work, and had been told the best car to take there was a 403 Familiale. They put over 100,000 miles on that little car before returning many years later. It had made it all the way down to the southern tip of the continent!
One of my friends in high school needed a cheap car, so he bought the Peugeot, and kept it for several years. When the starter finally gave up he simply rolled it down the street to start it, or if no slope, he got out the engine crank!
So what did my conservative [emotional, not politically] father replace the Peugeot with? He went back to the same foreign car dealer, but finding they didn’t have any wagons on the lot, he apparently had a mid-life crisis, and came home driving a white 1968 Porsche 912 with a 5-speed!
That poor old Pug ~ these were indeed wonderful cars .
Pops bought a ’59 (?) that worked hard until the mid 1960’s when the firewall had so many rust pinholes it failed the annual Massachusetts safety inspection .
Decades later he bought a Alliance, it too was troublesome and chewed up tires like nobody’s business so he took a bath and sold it on .
-Nate