When I am out riding and come across possible blog sigtings, they honestly come in the form of the usual big GM car or similarly sized Ford product, or maybe if I'm lucky, a Chrysler product. Very very rarely do I get a smaller car that isn't a sports car, and when I do, that small non-sports car is likely of American origin. I think this is to date the only Renault product I have been lucky enough to find.
On the outside, it doesn't appear to be all that special, and to be quite frank, it isn't. It's a typical economy car from the 1980s despite the fact that it's rare. As the badge on the trunk dictates, this car has a 1.7L four cylinder making all of 78 horses, which churn the front wheels. Honestly, that horspower figure seems quite poor, and even with the four door barely weighing 2400 lbs unloaded, it was still (likely) slow. The Alliance did get remarkable gas mileage though; roughly 38 city and 50 highway. I bet if today's compacts didn't push the 3200 lbs barrier, they'd get the same mileage.
This example, while not completely free of defects, is quite possibly the nicest non-show car Alliance I've seen in recent years. Correction: it's the only non-show car I've seen in recent years. Amazingly, despite Renault's supposed quality issues here in the 'states, this particular example does not have any rust (major anyway) that I can quickly point out, and since it's got a couple bumper stickers that don't look outdated, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this is a daily driver. This must be a sweet alternative to a new Civic or Sentra. I just hope the owner of this Renault cares about what he's saving, instead of keeping it just because he's frugal.
1 comment:
Great to see another car I have never heard of before, very different from the Renault 9 & 11 on which it was based, I do not think there is a single panel carried over from the 9 & 11 series.
The 1.7 fi motor was a huge improvement on the 1.4 carburettor motor and when installed in the Volvo 480 series could be made to fly.
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