My Renault Alpine Addiction

[Hertz]

Been here peeping for a long time (cracking site, love the banter) so thought I would share my love affair with the Renault Alpine which might be of interest.

 

It all started with my Dad (he has had almost every piece of shite you can think of and I love going through his old motor's with him over a beer). He had when it was a year old a Renault 21 Turbo. I loved that car, F reg Ph1 in Red can't find the reg number anywhere as I would love to find out if it's still around. Anyway I always promised myself one when I was old enough to afford one (I was 13 when he had it first time around).

 

Roll on another 8 years and my dad relived his youth with another 21 Turbo (Red Ph1, E reg this time). I was working at a company called Fleet and Lease in Knutsford Cheshire (anyone remember them?) as a valeter/driver whilst studying. He kept the 21 for about 3 months and then declared he was too old for a boy racer machine, so I sold my Cavalier GLi to a mate and bought the 21. Fantastic car and I loved the performance it gave especially on the motorway in 4th or 5th 50-70 mph (it was as quick as a Diablo apparantly ). Anyway long story short I had about 12 of the bloody things over the next 9 years, my favourite was the Quadra as it was very planted and felt a lot more stable than the 2WD variant. Here are 2 of the said beasts I had:

 

 

And the cheapest car I have ever bought, £50 this one was

 

 

Not bored and still reading? OK so the grey Quadra was my last as it caught fire on the M6 and was written off. 6 months prior to this the Wife and I went to visit Belgium where our family name originally comes from and a world record attempt at Zolder race Circuit. The world record was to have the most Renault "Sport" cars on the track at any one time. This of course included Renault Alpines and there were hundreds of them. I thought they were the bees knees and would have to try and find one when I got home to upgrade the 21 as I had enough of them by then to be honest.

 

Zolder Circuit World Record Attempt, not sure what the final outcome was to be honest as I didn't really care but it was a good weekend all the same.

 

 

So with the insurance money in my pocket (I was lucky and got a good payout for once as they balls'd up an agreed value which I hadn't even agreed on) I bought my first Alpine:

 

 

It was the 2.8 non Turbo PRV engine shared with the Volvo 760, Delorian and Peugeot 604 amongst lot's of others. It was an entry level one which had various paint and elecrtrical issues. I really liked it, the way the windscreen wipers "clapped" together and the open mouth's at the petrol station when you opened the bonnet to fill up. Along with the "What is it?" I was asked on many an occasion. It just lacked the Turbo push in the back I had with the 21's. I knew what was due next, a GTA Turbo!

 

So after a trawl on ebay I managed to find another entry level GTA with paint and electrical problems:

 

 

This one decided to brake down twice on the way home from picking it up, oh how I laughed (not). That's why I enjoy all your epic tat collection threads and can sympathise when you break down due to sellers not being shall we say totally honest Fault was traced to a non operational front fuel pump, yes it has 2 fuel pumps one at the front to feed the rear swirl pot and rear pump. That was an expensive learning curve but useful for the future. I enjoyed the red GTA Turbo for about a year then found another "bargain". I had to buy it as it was in a lovely Dark Blue Metallic and had a history file as thick as War and Peace.

 

 

It's the first car I have bought which had a pet name by the previous owner. "Merlin is his name" the seller proudly announced. "Why?" I ask. "Because he can do magic" he replied. I quickly paid him and shot off. Told the story to my wife and kids and the name kind of stuck. Anyway I really loved "Merlin" and even found some nice Azev wheels for it which transformed the look. After a couple of years of ownership I find out I'm redundant at work so the car has to go. I sell it almost straight away then 2 weeks later get another job, bit of a knee jerk reaction which I regretted at the time.

 

Settled into my new job I see 9 years redundancy pay from a previous employer plus the money from Merlin sat in the bank getting no or little interest, time for another Alpine. I wanted an A610, which was the last in the line of Alpine's when they stopped making them at Dieppe in 1995. Problem was only 67 were ever sold to the UK and I again my budget was entry level (there is a pattern here) time Not sure how but I managed to find 5 for sale at the time and went down to London to view 1, Northern Ireland another. They were all over priced or ruff. Although these cars are Glass Fibre they are mounted to a steel chassis which was never galvanised when new, so they rust quite badly. Anyway the best one I found was just down the road from me in Crewe. It was a belter, and knew as soon as I saw it on his drive that I would have to try and buy it.

 

 

I kept it for 2.5 years (the longest I have ever kept a car). I managed to crash it when going too fast from a roundabout onto a motorway slip way. It got repaired but I never felt right with it after that. I got offered very strong money for it after it had been repaired and looked mint so with a heavy heart let it go.

 

I broke quite a few GTA's in between for spares to keep other Alpine's on the road and I'm a member of the Renault Alpine Owners Club so have the bug pretty bad. I currently have a fire damaged GTA which is getting repaired by a specialist in Derby, hopefully it will be ready for the spring when I can have a rear engined blast again!

 

Hope I haven't bored everyone, not pure shite gold but with being french and breaking down on a regular basis I class them as sports car shite

 

Anyone spotted any Alpines or know of any hiding please let me know?

 

Happy New Year to you all!

[skattrd]

Happy New Year Martin, nice read.

With the number of Alpine's you've been through, I'm surprised you're not fixing your current one yourself.

 

You all ready know about my Alpine, my problem is that I keep buying other shite that needs work, so work on the GTA keeps being put back. If I don't make a start on it soon I may think about getting someone else to do the work on it.

 

BTW - If you hear of a red drivers door around please let me know

[HillmanImp]

Great write up, MORE THREADS LIKE THIS PLEASE PEEPS!

 

They are one of my favourite looking cars these. Would love to own one someday.

 

I have said this before but the only thing that really puts me off is the fact that the interior looks so sodding awful.

 

 

I would hate to be stuck looking at that dashboard all day!

[hhhugues]

what's wrong with that dash ? i'd love to be stuck behind one all day !

 

VERY cool things these anyway, please post more !

[R9UKE]

Really enjoyed that write up, great to see. I had no idea the bonnet had to be opened to fuel up. There's a stereotypical Renault reliability joke in there somewhere...

 

A friend of a friend has an Alpine here in Northern Ireland. He offered me a straight swap for the Avantime....

[skattrd]

I would hate to be stuck looking at that dashboard all day!

I'm in shock, I quite like the interior and the dash. The cheesy 80's electronic beeps and orangeness. Then theres the graphic of a car driving to a petrol pump for a fuel gauge, I'm a big fan. In mine I also have the ridiculous factory stereo as well - triple din with graphic equaliser and loads of buttons I don't understand

 

Plus in rhd GTA's you have the clapping wipers to entertain you when you bored of watching the gauges and wondering if the gauge is actually working or the cars about to breakdown

[Hertz]

Yes the wipers are fantastic, check these bad boys out for heath robinson technology (click the picture for the video):

 

[wuvvum]

Those wipers are very Panhard-esque, aren't they? One has to ask the question, "why?".

 

I'd definitely give an A610 house room, if anything worth having wasn't way over my usual shite-buying budget. I think they look great, especially the early ones. Wouldn't mind a 21 Turbo Quadra come to that - I had a 2wd Turbo and the thought of the same thing with less torque steer is appealing. I did actually have a 21 Quadra hatchback at one stage, but that only had the 2-litre 12-valve engine, which wouldn't have been enough to trouble the handling of a 2wd car.

[dollywobbler]

Wonderfully pointless. And not just the wipers. If a car must have flaws to have character, these things must have buckets of the stuff. I love them. Haven't managed to drive one yet mind...

[25v6turbo]

Welcome to the forum,great post and i agrre the 21 Turbo is a fantastic car,i,ve owned several over the yeats(E242 JPE WHERE ARE YOU?)they are great cars and i sometimes wish i still had mine..

Heres a nice early example,looks nice in silver.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Renault-21-TU ... 43b6b853f2

[pandarus]

Great blog

 

My MX5 broke down when I was taking that home...and thats with Mazda reliability

[Wilko220]

Nice read.

Always quite liked these (and like them even more since twatface on Top G*ar smashed one up for laughs). Nice looking cars.

[55bloke]

Absolutely wonderful!! MUCH respect to you sir! I'm a fellow Renault addict, though my addiction is mercifully less expensive! I'm addicted to R 25s! Sad, innit? I've always wanted to put a 21 turbo engine into one - should be fairly straight forward, I'd have thought?!

[Mr Lobster]

Enjoyed reading that so thanks for sharing.

 

Always lusted after a GTA or A610. One day, maybe...

[Spiny Norman]

Love those Alpines, how realistic a prospect are they as daily transport?

I remember Setright was a fan, and he did a cracking piece on one in CAR in the mid 80s, must see if I can dig it out.

[stuboy]

i remember back in 1990 my dad was due new company car and narrowed it to a sierra,cavalier or rennie 21... so looking around showroom of the renault variety and salesman ask if any thing caught his eye, not really my old man says and says come round side and tried to sell my dad an 6month year old alpine.... sadly company fleet manger said NO..!!

[skattrd]

Love those Alpines, how realistic a prospect are they as daily transport?

I ran my GTA (V6 Turbo) as a daily for a few weeks and it was absolutely fine. The clutch isn't too heavy, gearchange ok, quite civilised in traffic with reasonable view all round. The steering isn't too heavy, non PAS, but the engine is at the back so not much weight over the front wheels, std front tyres are 195/50/15, so not huge either. The biggest issue for me was the size of the boot. The front boot isn't massive so I ended up folding the rear seats down and using the back of the car as well.

Don't ask me about mpg, as at the time the fuel gauge didn't work and the odometer was intermittent, a wild guess would be about 25mpg.

[dieselnutjob]

I wish my 604 did 25mpg

I'm currently starting the process of putting megasquirt on it to try and sort it out.

I have a feeling that the Alpine people have a huge pool of PRV knowledge that I should find a way to tap into.

What engine oils do Alpine people normally go for?

[Hertz]

I used to get 20-30mpg out of my 2.8 non Turbo GTA. Managed 33MPG on a long run in the A610 with a light right foot. I would not use one as an every day car personally. I can't seem to relax in them for any length of time due to me always having one eye on all the guages and warning lights

 

DNJ - Have a look around renaultalpine.co.uk and ask for Martin Faulks. What he doesn't know about the PRV is not worth knowing