Renault 16 - The Motion Picture - Remake (p7)

[dollywobbler]

Indeed. Certainly in the early 1980s, my memories are of the 'wow' factor of a Renault 16 which the Maxi never had. The 16 got five speeds in the end too. 

[raggerminder]

So, so jealous.

 

My first post test solo drive was in my Dad's R16, that was in 1972 and the car would have been a few years old then. If I remember correctly that was his second one, the first being on a C plate with a smaller engine (1470?), I believe.

 

A bit later on, I owned a couple myself including a two tone one in yellow and brown - I do wish I had a photo of it to show the class of the look.

 

There is a fabulous TX that goes to shows up here in the frozen north, but I haven't seen one in the wild since I sold mine in about 1990.

[Skizzer]

Thx for the thread resurrection Breadman

 

I'm not trying to be deliberately contrary - but back in the day my old man had a Maxi, this and the R16 were the only real rivals to each other and on paper, the Maxi left the Renner for dead. Bigger, more powerful engine, OHC vs OHV, 5 speed, wider, very slightly lower boot lip, slightly less wheel arch intrusion etc.

And, it looked far more modern.

Fast forward 35 years and Maxi's look wank and these look foreign and exotic and...

Odd isn't it?

 

Keith Adams wrote an interesting article comparing the two - and came to much the same conclusion as you (and me), namely that both are clever designs with the Maxi having the edge on practicality and power (in 1750 flavour, at least) but the 16 being somehow just that little bit saucier.  Rarity helps, I think, I don't remember them being particularly sexual back in the 1970s when they were still everywhere.  I came close to buying a Sandglow Maxi as the sensible choice, but somehow couldn't quite resist the Renault.  (If it had been an HL in Reynard, things might have gone differently.)

 

Oooh nice thread, nice car, nice colour too. My dad used to buy and sell cars for pin money when I was a kid and he had loads of 16s, mostly TX's and I still have fond memories of them.

 

How are you getting on with it?

 

Btw anyone need some TX headlamps?

 

Ta.  Getting on with it boringly well - nothing has gone wrong, it starts happily every time and is super smooth.  Lots of condensation is a bit of a worry (the rear screen rubber is a bit spongey and porous) but there are no actual leaks and the monstrously fierce heater clears the screen heroically.  At some point I'll do a proper report, maybe with a bit of film in a Dollywobbler-stylee.

 

A bit later on, I owned a couple myself including a two tone one in yellow and brown - I do wish I had a photo of it to show the class of the look.

 

A two-tone yellow and brown Renault 16 is the stuff of LEGEND.  My trousers salute you.

[eddyramrod]

Who owned these?  The first one I really noticed belonged to my high-school French teacher, Mr Bethel.  It was maroon, and may have been a TL.  IIRC he had it all the time I was at that hellhole, so 1970-75.  And probably a few years either side of that.  Subsequently a neighbour had one who was lecturing at a local college, Business Studies or some such.  He then had two more, followed by a 30 which ended up with me.  He also had a history of P6s and P6Bs, and later, XJ6s which is where I saw him last.

 

I really like it in that blue, and the matching model is going to be a delight too.  You will of course show us when it's done?

[Skizzer]

Our next door neighbour had a TL then a TX and he was some sort of engineer - as was my father, although for some reason (price?) he preferred 12s. I associate them (new) with your slightly intellectual, polo-neck wearing types - headmasters, architects, university senior lecturers. Not as leftfield as a Saab, more like a smaller Volvo 145 estate for people without labradors.

[eddyramrod]

 I associate them (new) with your slightly intellectual, polo-neck wearing types

I can imagine the better classes of jazz drummers might have bought them too, you'd get a lot of kit in a 16.

[xtriple]

I bought a 16TX auto back in the day when I was skint yet again. I got a £500 loan from the bank and went car hunting. Best I could find was the Reggie and also I could get mutts in the boot.

 

It was a great car and went really well, though it used to block the idle jets in the carb on occassion, the remedy was to thrash the nellies off it for a minute and then it was as good as new!

 

I'd never really noticed them much before, but I really liked the Renault after my ego had got used to the 'come down' from a Jag and I used to lavish care on it dutifully. It was white/cream with a lovely soft velour type interior (can't recall the colour) and was in great condition, no rust, three bolt(?) 'rostyle' wheels twin headlights with wipers no less.

 

I was quite sad to see it go a bit later on and it was replaced with a Renault 20 in blue (more modern, better reg plate which the wife of the time deemed important) and later still, I had a 30. When they came out, I got a 25 and over the years had loads of them. I really liked that era of Renaults but as they got better (?) they got more complicated and they started to piss me off, I had a 25 that lied so much with alarming messages spoken and flashed up on the dash, I found myself stuck in traffic kicking the shit our of the dash to get the lying piece of crap to shut up!

[406V6]

My grandfather bought a new TS in 1970. He really wanted a Singer Vogue but couldn't get one because of strikes at the factory and bought the Renault instead. It was a lovely car - very comfortable - and my backside can still cast itself back in time and imagine the soft brown plastic seat material. The distinctive whining engine note and column gear change are permanently etched in my memory as well. Sadly he gave it away in 1991 due to the amount of rust around the rear suspension and OMGMOTFAILURE. I never saw it then but up to that point it was a total minter in all the visible places with even the plastic protection still on the door cards. I reckon it could have been repaired by the right expert and it was a far better car than the Fiasco that he replaced it with.

[Asimo]

Farmers liked a Renault 16, they appreciated the ride quality on the farm track and they were said to be ok for the pulling of trailers.

 

A '16 looks so right all muddy, with a collie hanging out the window and a massive gut in a tweed waistcoat behind the wheel.

[steve_earwig]

The distinctive whining engine note and column gear change are permanently etched in my memory as well.

It was a kind of whining, whirring noise really, I have that and the distinctive clunk of the handbrake being knocked off etched into my memory. Pus my dad trying to change gear with the windscreen wipers of any other car he got into...

 

My dad used to be a bit of a dodgy car dealer sort of bloke in his free time, although I suspect he really just liked changing his car a lot and found he could make a few scheckles doing it. He must have had at least a dozen 16's, mostly TX's too.

 

This was in the early 80's, although he kept one into the 90's (XBL ???T, I really should find out what the plate was and see if it still exists, it was a gold TX with light brown cloth) which he eventually sold to an "enthusiast".

[Skizzer]

Reet, a mini-update.  The 16 now has a new dry home:

 

Renault 16 in its garage by Skizzer, on Flickr

 

It's an ex-council lock-up about 10 minutes walk away and is nice and dry as well as pleasingly patinated.  You can see that Keith The Dog is excited to go and visit it, as the Renault is his favourite car.  In fact he was so excited there are now some new claw marks on the front wing, but there were already so many scratches and chips that a couple more don't make any difference.

 

The garage's owner is a very nice fellow whose daily driver is an excellent workhorse K-plate 405 estate, and who was previously using the garage to house a mid 90s Audi A4 that he got for £150 and is 'the poshest car he's ever had'.  We had a good old chat and I told him to check out AS, but that was in the Dark Time the other week when the beige was down (unbeknown to me) so he may have failed to find us.

 

Renault likes being dry.  It's parked outside the house at the mo as the weather is fab.  Took it out for a good run earlier:  everything still works very well although a spot of sharp braking did remind me that the Hang-On Ditchfinders want replacing with some real tyres at some point.  There's a little bit of residual dampness under the vinyl floor, so I left it to dry out in the sunshine outside the rugby club gym this morning:

 

Hanging out to dry by Skizzer, on Flickr

 

I've been working stupid hours in a bunker in Hampshire since the beginning of January but hopefully will be home (and online) a bit more for a while.  The Renault is definitely the home runabout of choice.  Need to get the Rover MOTd though: am missing my V8 bruiser-barge.

[steve_earwig]

Fantastic, the really takes me back

 

I'm afraid I've pinched that second shot for my desktop wallpaper, am I sad? I'll email it on to my bro, he used to have one the same colour.

 

Cool name for a dog too.

[Skizzer]

I'm afraid I've pinched that second shot for my desktop wallpaper, am I sad? 

 

Not in my book - I consider it an honour, sir 

[MrFarkinBasz]

Very nice indeed - I recall one of my neighbours had one of these back in the '70s.

[Skizzer]

I can haz made a filmage on the Shitefest hill:

 

http://youtu.be/6iN0P5waTlU

 

It's a bit dull but I thought I might as well post it anyway.  At some point I might get my shit together and do a Dollywobbler-style road test, which may be even more dull.

 

Thanks to GaryCox for supplying the excellent camera car (Pug 405) and being a smooth and patient driver, and Dugong for galvanising me into action (and taking some truly fantastic stills, to appear in due course).

 

 

Edit: Note hot Talbot Alpine action at 0.33!  Also bonus Piazza and Nippa.

[hairnet]

thats fugging ace

 

was gonna say you got frog bombed by beko but i think its a saxo

 

if joe did one it would look speeded up and ace of spades.......

[trigger]

Wow! That is a fantastic video! I'd love to be able to do something like that!

[Sudsprint]

Excellent - dreamy music

[steve_earwig]

That is a very nice thing to see indeed I must confess I was hoping for R16 engine noises, handbrake clunking off, that sort of thing but that'll do fine.

[Skizzer]

Wow! That is a fantastic video! I'd love to be able to do something like that!

 

Thank you - it's actually very easy, just a GoPro on a suction mount and a bit of fiddling in iMovie (the free video software that comes with a Mac).

 

That is a very nice thing to see indeed I must confess I was hoping for R16 engine noises, handbrake clunking off, that sort of thing but that'll do fine.

 

Yes, agreed - trouble is it doesn't really sound like an R16 inside (autobox, soundproofing, squeaky steering, wind noise) and an externally mounted GoPro's internal mic just picks up wind roar, so I will have to capture the audio separately.  If I do a proper test I promise it'll have authentic French pushrod sounds in it.

 

The dreamy music is Nouvelle Vague's cover of I Melt With You by Modern English, by the way.  Great album.  Very French (in a good way), like the car.

[Uncle Jimmy]

I associate them (new) with your slightly intellectual, polo-neck wearing types - headmasters, architects, university senior lecturers.

[Junkman]

 

[Skizzer]

^ Ace. I'll bet you 10 francs that the green one les flics were flinging around wasn't on Nankypoo budget ditchfinders. Need to get me some proper XZXs for wheel-lifting corner action.

[Junkman]

^ Ace. I'll bet you 10 francs that the green one les flics were flinging around wasn't on Nankypoo budget ditchfinders.

 

Il a un moteur de flic, une appareil de seize cents centimetres de cube. Il est obtenu pneus de flics, des suspensions de flics, des amortisseurs de flics.

Il est un modèle fabriqué avant les convertisseurs catalytiques, de sorte qu'il va courir bien sur l'essence ordinaire.

 

What I love about those old French movies is that the flics are usually the baddies. Much closer to the truth than Anglo-American cineastic fiction.

[Skizzer]

Ah oui, tu as raison.  Mais je crois aussi qu'il n'a pas de boite de vitesses Junkman-apprové comme le mien.

 

Tous les meilleurs autos ont fabriqué avant les converisseurs catalytiques, n'est-ce pas?  Tous les autos modernes sont le merde.

[Asimo]

 

So, R16 - great for drifting!

 

 

Maybe.

 

[beko1987]

Thats a top video, it is a lovely old thing!

[Junkman]

Tous les autos modernes sont le merde.

Ah oui! Friperie à la mode, sans inclinaison grotesque sur les courbes.

[eddyramrod]

Bloody ace!  I thought that vid was crying out for "On Days Like These" though - bit of a cliche maybe, but that's what jumped out at me.  Well done Junkman for finding the chase vids too!  Now we need a bit of Autoshite re-enactment.....

[Inspector Morose]

Oh so that's what you wanted the BX for! Apologies as I'd got the wrong end of the stick and you wanted to film from inside the boot!

Then again, all you'd probably get is the 16 in a sort of soft focus effect caused by clouds of black smoke. Could have been arty, i suppose.