This is a post involving cars that R&T had tested previously, and had been given some changes.
So R&T returned with updates in the 1980 July issue.
Starting with styling updates for the Le Car:
Next we have the 2.0 Liter Spider, which is updated with fuel injection:
And the Porsche gets two pages from R&T, who were self-admittedly 928 aficionados:
Also, see the Fiat\Lancia improvements.
R&T had a long tradition in the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s for being foaming-at-the-mouth enthusiastic over marginally functional foreign cars that were totally unsuitable for American driving habits (15K year at 60 to 80 mph and minimal/no maintenance) while denigrating dependable, “dull” American cars.
They viewed expensive, foreign adult toys as dependable, useable, reliable means of transportation.
I owned several Fiats, as well as a Renault LeCar. I viewed them all as quirky, fun dalliances that could never take the permanent place of an older Buick I kept as a back up car. A car that always started on the first try, ran smoothly and had an excellent HVAC system.
My parents would frequently ask me “When are you going to sell that Buick?” My reply was something along the lines of “When (insert foreign car toy) stays together for one month without breaking.”
The old Buick outlasted ALL of ’em!
although my family had more than its share of fix it again tony experiences in the 70s, the fiats were so much fun that we put up with them for over a decade. after that, my parents moved on to swedish metal which proved much better in all ways than any domestic cars in their experience. yes, we owned one buick for about 15 years but it was a rust bucket by the end of the first decade. their volvos and saabs, in contrast, looked and drove great well into their second decade.
I owned 3 Fiats (so far)….or did they own me? Anyway, yes, wonderful, fun, enjoyable cars…when nothing was broken on them. I still maintain they were expensive adult toys.
That 124 Spider is so cool. There are tons of them still driving around Toronto in the summer months. I think Toronto has a 20:1 Ratio of Fiat Spider to Mazda Miata ratio, you rarely ever see a Miata around here. I still Buy Parts from Bayless Fiat! They are in Ohio now
I don’t think its the same company anymore. Rick retired and sold off name/inventory to group in Ohio. At least that’s what I remember. I too used to get parts from Bayless for my Brava (high school/college vehicle) and later when I got my 1980 Fiat Spider 2000 with the optional EFI (which was introduced mid-year). That’s been my fun car since 1994 and as the article notes the EFI was a great improvement. My Brava (same engine as spider) was carbed and could be finicky in really cold Wisconsin winters, though it was better than every domestic car my parents owned.
when i was about 20, some jackass in a camaro decided to challenge me while i was driving my father’s fiat 2000. i took him through some winding roads in the mountains in nj overlooking nyc. i knew that he would kick my butt as soon as we hit a straight-away. it was night time so i turned onto a straight road that ended by a school. i heard the v8 revving up behind me as he started to catch up. i downshifted by the school and went over the speed bumps at about 25 mph. i told my passenger to turn around and let me know what happens. i heard the camaro bottom out and saw the headlights bounce in my mirror. my passenger was speechless. after about ten seconds, he laughed so hard he almost cried. all he could say was “sparks.”
no. i don’t drive like that anymore. i’m just grateful no one was hurt.
I had a Le Car, and loved it; bought it used with about 4,000 miles on it, and had to sell it because of relocating overseas (which was before I’d encountered any problems with the car, except for the hinges on the pop-out rear windows needing to be reglued). Most comfortable riding car ever this side of a Peugeot.
What memory didn’t tell me is just how unimpressive the fuel economy was, per the R&T test. And it certainly wasn’t fast. I remember going to test an Alliance when they first came out, and finding it quite peppy compared to my Le Car!
I had an ’83 Le Car I’ve written about before. Worlds of annoyances, but the basic engine and drivetrain were pretty good. The brakes, electrical, A/C, body hardware, upholstery, emission controls, etc., not so much! The R/T article is correct about the big folding sunroof. It makes the car, along with the comfort for such a small vehicle. I remember getting in the high 30’s – low 40’s MPG on the highway, which is about what my Honda Fit gets. I doubt that the Honda will generate as many stories 30 years later as the Renault did.
The Renault LeCar was cute as a button but had some serious flaws. I don’t think even the supple French ride would have been enough to entice me. It was very popular in Quebec though.
FrankCanada I am in Ontario. Good to see another Canuck here!
I know guys “of a certain age who will cross themselves and mutter vague curses at the mention of the car name “Renault Dauphine”.
Their sons do the same at the mention of the car name “Renault LeCar”.
🙂
On the Le Car, loosing 12% of the hp while growing the engine in one year due to emissions. Was Ford tuning the engines? Bet AMC fought for the Bendix injection on the Alliance. 56-60hp was bad enough, I did not know things had gotten as bad as 51hp.
Notice that only California cars get cats, and a couple extra hp for it. The curse of “what the hell were they thinking letting leaded gas be the cheap option during the phaseout?”
I will never forget the Renault 5. The ’81 I test drove caught fire. And I still wanted one afterwards.
As to the Porsche 928, that is THE most beautiful, sexiest car ever designed. The car that finally pushed the Cord 810 off the pedestal for me. Test drove one, loved it, unfortunately it was an automatic, and I’ll hold out for a stick. Guess its keep looking for another 924/944.
Yes, the Mercedes-Benz sourced automatic tranny in the 928 was slow shifting, clumsy and sluggish. Any cheapie Amercian economy car had a better shifting slush box tranny.
When I was working at a P/A dealership in the late ’80’s, there was a dedicated micro fiche for the 928’s Mercedes transmission. You had to get the Mercedes part numbers for it and order them through a Mercedes dealer. Porsche did not supply the parts directly from their warehouse!
Heck yes, Porsches have always left me rather cold but the 928 is the exception that keeps my juices flowing. Never driven one, never even sat in one, but I think it’s THE Porsche you got to either hate or be in love with, there’s no in-between. It was a one-shot that never had any followers, it’s like Porsche recovered from a 1970s hangover and got cold feet afterwards. The Panamera is a big lasagna in comparison, and the Cayenne has pimpmobile written all over it already. The 928 never happened again.
I had a 928S with the much maligned Merc auto – the later 4 speed in mine. It actually suited the car pretty well and was responsive, with quick shifts and readily available kick down. It’s telling that most of the guys at Porsche that had these said they preferred the auto.
It felt so modern for an over 30 year old vehicle with great steering and balanced handling. And the way the instruments move with the column is still genius. The wonderful, timeless styling by Wolfgang Moebius, with its C2 Corvette inspiration never failed to excite me.
I want another one one day – a later S4 or GT will do nicely!
Heh, looking at the 928 I just realized our Town and Country minivan is a tick faster to 60 and through the 1/4 mile.
Man, does that ever put a damper on my childhood lusts, lol.
When I drove a 1982 Renault The Voiture in the second half of the eighties I wanted this one very badly, the (second gen) Renault 5 GT Turbo. 120 hp from a 1.4 liter engine with a small turbocharger. Note that its weight is only 855 kg (1,885 lbs).
I drove a LeCar in the early 80’s. The soft, long travel suspension was miraculous at soaking up the bumps. It could float over speed bumps and rough roads at speeds which would damage other cars. But the body rolled a lot in corners. I think it had no sway bars at all.
I’ve never owned or particularly benn attracted to any of these, but seeing them all together reminded me that I actually have driven all of them. The 928 was an automatic, Passed down to its owner from his father-in-law … who became a 928 fan and later bought a very nice 5 speed 928S. He let me drive the 928 for an afternoon in trade for using my pickup; it was quite a change from the Ranger and Corolla we owned at the time, and much much faster than the early 924 a college friend had let me drive once.
Amen on the LeCar, good and bad. Yes, I had about 1 major failure per year, about the same as I had with Detroit iron. Yes it rusted even faster that 70s Detroit iron. Yes, it had a way of getting down a road, especially a twisty one, in a more entertaining manner than anything I had ever driven. Maybe it was the small size, or where the torque peak came on, or the little whirr from the engine, or the 13″, fat rimmed, after market BWA steering wheel, but I could groove it through a canyon near home at 45, and feel like Nikki Lauda.
I also had the awesome sunroof.
Please forgive a naïve question from the other side of the pond, what’s the story with this sunroof on the Le Car exactly, it sounds to me like one of these things everybody in America loves to hate (like the 4.1 V8 Cadillac engine), I even remember the good George Costanza whining about it in “Seinfeld” and cracking everybody up… Automotive history is full of small Jar-Jar Binks and this sunroof just seems to be one of them… Just wondering!
…what’s the story with this sunroof on the Le Car exactly,
The thing about the LeCar sunroof is it’s awesome.
-it doesn’t leak like the sliding glass and steel sunroofs. There is a steel flange on the roof that prevents water getting into the hole in the roof.
-the mechanism is dead simple, though you do have to stop to open and close it. There are two bows in the roof. The rear bow is held down by rubber straps and the front bow by a clamp at the center of the roof frame. The drill to open it was release the two rubber straps, unclamp the clamp, swing the bows to the rear, then use a different pair of rubber straps to tie the bows down.
-the sunroof adds headroom when closed. Glass or steel sunroofs reduce headroom, because they slide under the stationary roof. I went to the Detroit auto show to look over several candidates before I bought mine. There were a couple LeCars on the AMC stand that did not have sunroofs, and I did not have enough headroom in them. Because the LeCar sunroof is on top of the car’s roof, it adds about 1 1/2″ of headroom.
-the LeCar sunroof works better than air conditioning. The car I had prior to the LeCar had a solid steel roof and A/C. Coming out of the office at the end of the day, the car would be boiling hot inside. The A/C was useless because, by the time the A/C got the inside cooled down, I was home. The LeCar sunroof was so large that the hot air in the car would immediately fly out of the car the moment I opened the roof. The end of the work day drill with the LeCar was to reach inside to release the clamp on the front bow, I left the side straps unattached when I was only driving around town, flip the bows back and attach the tie down straps. By the time I had done that, the interior would be down to ambient temperature.
Renaults of that time looked different and everything worked differently, from normal US/Japanese practice, so they were ridiculed. But once you got used to the differences, everything worked fine.
Here’s a shot of a LeCar in a junkyard. The vinyl roof itself is gone, but it gives you and ideal how large the roof is.
Thank you Steve for this very comprehensive answer! Now I get it.
I was kind of wondering why there seemed to be this kind of outcry against this particular sunroof. I have rather fond childhood memories of it myself. Back in the late 1970s in France a friend of my parents’ drove a Renault 5 with exactly that kind of sunroof, and in the summertime we kids just loved to stand on the rear seat with our heads in the warm wind (something which would possibly send the driver to jail nowadays).
I think glass sunroofs were extremely rare in Europe at that time. The 1st one I ever saw was on an ad in a custom car magazine. Steel sunroofs were an expensive option not many cars had, and those that did were often sedans on the top end of the market (say, CXs or fully loaded 504s). The same applies to A/C.
So, well, I guess there was nothing odd about a soft sunroof on a popular car like the Renault 5, or the Renault 4 which had it as an option, or the Citroen 2CV on which it was compulsory:-). They did not age gracefully but they were very simple to use and great fun, actually. You could turn your tin can into a convertible in no time, and for a fraction of a “real” convertible’s money.
I was kind of wondering why there seemed to be this kind of outcry against this particular sunroof.
My suspicion is that any criticism of the sunroof, as with criticism of everything else about the R5, comes from people who never lived with one. The guy in the video I posted admits that he hated the LeCar when it was current, but now that he has driven one for a bit, he admits how wrong he was.
I only knew the LeCar from it’s POS reputation. But I never rode in one, let alone drive one. It’s nice to read first-hand experiences. Makes me wish I would have driven one.
Short video of a LeCar. This is an earlier model. Mine was an 80 so had the more conventional instruments and controls as shown in the R&T article. I don’t remember the fuel pump in mine being this noisy. I don’t remember hearing it at all. From the guy’s comments, you can get a sense of how neat these cars were to drive.
I think that we can all agree the sunroof was the best thing about the LeCar.
Praising the sunroof only, would be selling the rest of the car short, not acknowledging the rigid structure, supple suspension, seats that are contoured just right and the wide powerband of the engine.
After the LeCar, I had an 85 Mazda GLC. The Mazda was light years more reliable and rust resistant. The Mazda also had a oversprung, underdamped suspension, chassis flex and comparatively peaky engine. Running the GLC through the same canyon where I played Nikki Lauda in the Renault was an exercise in frustration. The Mazda could not hold the lumpy Michigan pavement like the Renault could and the peaky engine wanted to be wound up all the time.
The GLC was followed by a 98 Civic. The Civic didn’t suffer the chassis ills of the GLC, but still fell short of the Renault. The shifter was always reluctant to engage 5th and reverse and the engine was even more peaky. The Honda was the only one of the three with power steering, which I hated because I could not feel the texture of the pavement like I could with the Mazda and Renault.
Of the three, the Renault was the most entertaining to drive, with the Mazda second and the Civic, which the media always fawned over, being the worst.
Steve, I can understand and agree with much of what you posted.
I wonder if your Honda suffered some form of abuse before you bought it? I have three Hondas of the mid 1980’s, all five speeds, all textbook “reference standards” for 5 speed manual shifting quality and enjoyment.
Your reply further underscores my opinion that Italian and French cars are expensive adult toys, giving pleasure and joy, if not everyday dependability.
I wonder if your Honda suffered some form of abuse before you bought it?
I bought the 98 new. Complained to the dealer about the balky shifter. Mechanic said operation was normal. Drove another new 98, couldn’t find 5th. A few years later, I bought a second hand 97 as a beater. That one was a little better. It was also way too easy to beat the 3rd gear synchro, and if I muffed the 3rd gear shift, then entire box was out of sync and nothing would engage without slowing and double clutching.
I had none of these problems with the 85 Mazda. That trans went in the right gear, on the first try, every time. Cable shifter and cable clutch. Best shifter I ever had.
I did test drive a base trim 06 Acura RSX, new. Fabulous shifter. Every gear, first time, every time, with stunningly short throws. If I had bought it, that RSX might have dethroned the Mazda for best shifter ever.
Your reply further underscores my opinion that Italian and French cars are expensive adult toys, giving pleasure and joy, if not everyday dependability.
Agreed. I would add they were especially susceptible to rust here in Michigan.
Disappointing to read, Steve.
Anyone else have “issues” with late 1990’s Honda shifting?
Well sure the R5 was a great little car, smart, simple and fun. Heck they made over 5 million of them until 1985, in a wide and ever-increasing range of models (from the dead simple, entry-level L and TL to the sexy Alpine and the monstrous Turbo). They were absolutely everywhere when I was a kid. Build quality was, well, very 1970s-like, so good early models are very hard to find now. Later models have aged better.
I lust for and crave a brightly colored Renault Le Car, with, of course, the flip back sunroof. No other car had a level of luxury, joie de vivre and respectable economy for that much style and design. I only rode in one twice and at 40 it felt like 80. SO FUN. Probably, calling two rides in a Le Car akin to Xanadu is like deciding to move to Seattle on the one day it’s 82º. But if you have one, find a way to get at me. I might buy it.
I was in college when the Le Car hit the market. Since this was north central Louisiana and no AMC dealer in sight, the only Le Car on campus were in motor magazines. Also, no Porches, no FIATs.
The car of choice on campus was a Camaro or Firebird, or a Ford pickup as a strong third place with several Pintos pulling up the rear.
The school lacked a “metropolitan” view of the world.
The only new car I ever biought was a 1980 LeCar with the big sunroof. I echo AMC Steves comments about being able to drive like Nikki Lauda through the twisties. The Formuling France steering wheel made the already perfect steering feel even better. After college I moved to Israel and shipped my car to Begium and drove it t oGreece to catch the ferry to Israel. What a great car in the Alps and on the small local roads I took through Greece and Yugoslavia. If only the quality was there, The electric fan switch would go frequently and when the idiot light came on it was after the head warped.
I had an (unfortunate) opportunity to drive a Le Car. At around the same timeframe, I also was given the keys to drive a Lada, also on the same short jaunt.
I am happy to report I survived both and lived to tell the tale. Both cars were absolute crap, unreliable, unfixable, undesirable garbage. The renault felt like it was going to tip over at any hint of being pushed through a turn. It had the handling of a bumper car ride.
I don’t have as clear memories of the Lada, but do recall its owner having it in for constant repairs, as did the owner of the Le Crap.
Neither car stayed with its owner very long, they were traded in within a few short years.