Renault 18 – Driven To Write

So Glad they Bothered: 1983 Mazda 626

DTW looks back at a car which attracted a very favourable review from then-editor Cropley at Car magazine, yet would scarcely register in terms of annual sales.

1983 Mazda 626 Hatchback (GC) (source: Pinterest)

In 1983, I was 15 and already deep in car nerd-dom. I had a monthly order for Car magazine at my local newsagent (at which I had a part-time job every Sunday morning) and would genuinely get a tingle of excitement one week of every month in anticipation that it would be there as ordered when I rolled up for work.

The June 1983 edition is one I still Continue reading “So Glad they Bothered: 1983 Mazda 626”

Photo For Sunday : La Gamme Complète

Renault 82, it says on the cover.

The image you see here is taken from a 1982 brochure prepared by Publicis Conseil (Renault’s long-standing communications and advertising agency) for Ireland’s then distributor, Smiths Distributors LTD, who also assembled Renault 4s in Co Wexford for the Irish market. More a pamphlet than a brochure, it nevertheless provided a well-produced and reasonably comprehensive overview of what the nationalised French carmaker had to Continue reading “Photo For Sunday : La Gamme Complète”

Fire Without the Spark

The French Capri?

The Spanish word for fire, the Renault Fuego was somewhat unusual in 1980 in that it was in receipt of a name rather than a numeral. The nationalised French carmaker’s numerical system, which had been in place since the ’60s was already showing signs of unravelling, but would take almost another decade before being abandoned with debut of the Clio in 1990. This made the Fuego something of an outlier in the range, a status the car maintains to this day.

To those who Continue reading “Fire Without the Spark”

Anniversary Waltz 1978 – This Year’s Model

Driven to Write forces down some Texas tea.

A year which appeared to consist of little but tit-for-tat nuclear weapons tests by opposing cold war powers, that uniquely played host to three different Catholic pontiffs, where the Red Brigades kidnapped and murdered former Italian Prime Minister, Aldo Moro, and where Spain finally renounced the last vestiges of dictatorship by declaring a democracy, 1978 experienced its share of geopolitical turmoil.

Distraction was the order of business, with cinema-goers enjoying the top-grossing musical, Grease, while the music charts remained dominated by disco’s glitterball. The Bee Gees’ soundtrack to 1977’s Saturday Night Fever held the number spot in the American billboard chart for a death-gripping 21 weeks, with Night Fever the year’s top-selling single. In the UK, it was German (open inverted commas) recording artists (close inverted commas) Boney M, with Rivers of Babylon, which kidnapped the affections of the mainstream UK record buying public.

But not all. While Elvis Costello and the Attractions’ 1978 release attempted to Continue reading “Anniversary Waltz 1978 – This Year’s Model”

Plentiful Phlogiston, an Ample Ether and a Strong Vital Force

Saloon or hatchback? Which is it? Why?

We are not interested in the front of this car: iMDB.org

From 1972 to 1984 the VW sold the Passat with the option of a 5-door as well as 2-door and five doors. Today it’s only sold as a saloon and estate. The Citroen XM came as a five-door hatchback and as a fabulously useful estate. Its predecessors and successors could only be had as saloons or estates.

All generations of the Seat Toledo, barring one have been hatchbacks. For 1999, the second generation Toledo astounded the world with its saloon format (except in Britain where it was a hatchback**). By 2004 the status quo ante resumed and remains so.

In the 1970s quite a few manufacturers experimented with the 5-door format but reverted by the early 80s. We know this. Don’t Continue reading “Plentiful Phlogiston, an Ample Ether and a Strong Vital Force”

Theme: Special – Two Tone Renaults

I prefer to avoid travelling too far and too often down memory lane for these articles. However, the 1983 Renault 18 “American” special edition has lured me to briefly wander along that path.

1984 Renault 18 "American" — 1984 Renault 18 “American”: wikipedia.org

As is well documented here, the 80s in Ireland passed slowly and greyley. I imagine selling cars required patience and determination as fewer people were buying, struck by the fear of unemployment or numbed by the pervasive sense of despair. Imagine trying to sell a middle-rank car of limited apparent appeal. The Renault 18 had six years under its belt by the time 1983 had rolled around.

There were three more years to go before the almost equally dreary 21 would emerge. A combination of dismal economic conditions and an ageing platform meant Renault needed to Continue reading “Theme: Special – Two Tone Renaults”