Renault 16 - Four Together

[Six-cylinder]

Yesterday I went to the Little Gransdon Airshow near Cambridge we were treated to a fine display of airplanes including both Lancaster’s flying together and the Vulcan a bit later in the afternoon but the thing that sticks in my mind is seeing four Renault 16s on one show ground!

 

I have never owned a Renault 16 and it is a long time since I have driven one but after yesterday would like one.

 

 

 

 

 

[Sudsprint]

Great photos of a car I want to own more and more.

 

The TX was a great addition at the end of the run but the earlier grill & headlamp arrangement nails it for me.

[Parky]

Always loved those, still look good today

[Split_Pin]

That P reg one is ace, just like those I loved to spot around 1990 when I became interested in old Renaults. The ones I saw weren't as spruce as that example though!

[mercrocker]

The French seemed to have a knack (long-since lost) of designing truly "avant-garde" cars in the proper sense of the phrase.   Take the DS - 1955 yet it was so Sixties, and these 16s - 1965 but a 1970s style.   Didn't those TXs have a five speed column shift?   There was an old boy I worked with who had one and claimed he couldn't drive the firms Metro van as he hated the gearchange.   He had a gammy arm and needed a close-to-hand shifter...

[chaseracer]

FOUR??!

 

Excuse me while I experience une crise énorme...

 

 

 

[eddyramrod]

My French teacher had one, unsurprisingly; this was the early 70s and it was this colour...

Screenshot from The New Avengers.  IIRC this car ended up stripped in a field in the show.  Wonder if it still exists?

A neighbour had three in succession, then a 30...

which passed through my hands in 1985 before being broken for parts.  He moved on to Jags. [/useless trivia]

[Junkman]

My father ordered one immediately after it was launched. Turns out he was the second person in Germany to do so,

and hence got the second example ever sold there (except for the Germans living in the Saarland, who could buy

French cars immediately when the French could.

He then bought a new one every three years, hence had five altogether, the last one being a screaming yellow TX.

 

One can say I was raised in and around R16s, and they are indeed associated with many of my childhood memories.

I still have their peculiar interior smell 'in my nose'. They smell unlike any other car, with their seats being upholstered

with genuine horsetail hair.

[Spiny Norman]

I absolutely love Renault 16s. I grew up with them from the ages of 3 to about 15 when Dad had three of them, two white TLs and a metallic blue TS automatic. To this day I can smell them, and hear the distinctive noise they made, and fee the burn as the industrial grade black PVC seating welded itself to my legs.
 

You've no idea how happy I was on here when I reached the rank of "Renault 16".

[Junkman]

When travelling during the night, my parents folded the rear seat forward,

hung the seat back under the roof (the ones familiar with R16s will know what I mean)

and made a bed for us children on the boot floor.

I clearly remember the rows of oval holes on the underside of the parcel shelf

above me. Counting them helped me fall asleep. There are 48 oval cutouts.

 

Sometimes this configuration was kept during the day, enabling my sister and me

sitting there tailor-fashion playing with Lego, while the car swooshed along an

Autobahn at 100, making its typical high pitched wailing sound.

I also remember the exposed fuel filler pipe protruding into the boot.

You could hold on to it in sharp bends.

 

I also remember the speedometer (in km, of course) only showing odd numbers,

i.e. 10/30/50/70/90 etc all the way up to 170. When my father leadfooted down

an Autobahn incline, he would say 'look how fast we're going' and us leaning

over the front seat backs to see the speedo, which then was void of any needle.

It had disappeared behind the fascia, after it went past 170.

[Skizzer]

^ I'm not sure why that has formatted itself into a poem, but I'm glad it has.   It is rather beautiful.  (Or maybe that's just me.)

 

Was it deliberate?

[Junkman]

Was it deliberate?

 

No. You are grossly overestimating my intellectual capability.

[Noel Tidybeard]

OI six the word is aeroplane

[Noel Tidybeard]

my dad nearly had a 16 but we had a 12 estate instead

[Sudsprint]

My French teacher had one, unsurprisingly; this was the early 70s and it was this colour...

REN16BB.jpg

Screenshot from The New Avengers.  IIRC this car ended up stripped in a field in the show.  Wonder if it still exists?

A neighbour had three in succession, then a 30...

Renault 30.jpg

which passed through my hands in 1985 before being broken for parts.  He moved on to Jags. [/useless trivia]

It was the episode called 'The Tale of The Big Why' and was easily the most stylish New Avengers episode- but that is not saying much.

 

Curiously as the 16 crashed into a tree it magically changed into a later model with the squared off rear light clusters. 

 

That said, this is precisely the type of pedantic anal comment that makes me worry about myself since I came off my medication.

[Six-cylinder]

OI six the word is aeroplane

 

I blame spell check, since when on here has our spelling and grammar had to be perfect anyway!

 

I always have had a problem with my English, I did not get my English O level until I was 32 after years of trying yet have HND Mech Eng. All my life I have been handicapped with my written English.

[Junkman]

The very first thing you see in the very first episode of "The Persuaders!" is a black R16.
 

[Noel Tidybeard]

I blame spell check, since when on here has our spelling and grammar had to be perfect anyway!

 

I always have had a problem with my English, I did not get my English O level until I was 32 after years of trying yet have HND Mech Eng. All my life I have been handicapped with my written English.

dont care about perfect but i just dont like the murrican version of some words

[NorfolkNWeigh]

It seems Junkman and his sibling were Extra-bulky luggage.

 

I was lucky enough to have an R reg white with black vinyl roof 16 TL when I was 18. I'm sure I discovered some more positions. For 6 months I had the 16 and a Yamaha350 LC . Talk about set them up and knock them down in comfort. It's a wonder I didn't wear it out.

I also liked to drive it using only my fingertips to change gear and doing clutch less changes, I'm sure it impressed my vict.... Er conquests , just as much as frightening the shit out of them on the bike.

[Sudsprint]

When I was 18 (1980) my Dad drove me out to look at a maroon 1967 R16 at on a dealers forecourt at the top of Charing Hill.

 

It was going to be my first car.

 

That was in the day when a 13 year old (just) roadworthy Renault was sagging under the weight of pudding and underseal.

 

The garage was closed and even I flinched at its crusty sills …but I can still remember the smell through the glass of the interior sweating away that hot Sunday afternoon.

[Junkman]

My father's TX even made it onto a postcard.

 

 

This is Reit im Winkl, on the German/Austian border, Winter 1978.

We were on a ski holiday there. This is M-A 3996 with dad's customary I.S.C.Y.R.A. (International Star Class Yacht Racing Association)

sticker in the back window. My father was an avid Star Class racer at the time.

Note absence of the TX-typical roof spoiler, which never made it through the German TÃœV. No TXes sold in Germany had it.

We were not aware that this photo was taken, until I discovered the postcard while holidaying in the area in the late 90s.

 

Also note the Ratrac snow cat shite near the centre of the pic. Those were built in Switzerland and had a 429 Ford for motive power.

The sound of those things made me being hooked on yanks for a sizable proportion of my life.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

FOUR??!

 

Excuse me while I experience une crise énorme...

 

 

 

 

Gah!!! My favourite woman who lives inside the telly.

[Junkman]

While the yellow TX was parked at the Chiemsee Yacht Club arse end to the club house,

a 4-year-old girl fell off the balcony on the second floor above.

She fell through the back window, took out the parcel shelf, and landed on the boot floor.

She had no injuries that couldn't be cured with a bag of Haribo gummi bears.

That's safety for you. Not airbags.

[Junkman]

We went on a camping holiday in Yugoslavia with my father's third and snot green R16, a TL if I'm not mistaken.

Pula, on the Istrian peninsula, to be precise. I was 13 and allowed to go to the local Disco at night (how 70s).

Unfortunately, the local supermodels grossly underestimated my prowess at the time, something that changed

dramatically, when I showed up at the same venue with my Guzzi LeMans 850 just five years later...

 

Anyway, where were we?

Oh yes, the back box fell off down there, which caused unbearable structure-borne noise inside the car.

So my father had it welded up on the way back at a garage in Portorož. It lasted until Udine.

He there had a business drinking (i.e. Grappa) with a garage owner, and they agreed to remove the

back box altogether, to be replaced with a new exhaust system once we are back in Munich.

So we went across the Alps without a back box, and I loved every second of it.

[Junkman]

I was still very little, and we visited my grandparents in Hof,

about 300km north of Munich, with my father's second R16, which was dark blue.

Like aforementioned, my sister and I, spent the trip playing Lego on the boot floor.

Something must have gone wrong, since my father dropped our R16 at a local Renault garage there.

I suspect it was OMGHGF, because I remember one of the mechanics sitting in the engine bay,

which was possible, once the spare wheel had been removed, tinkering with the top end.

I was still a toddler and thus very sad that our car was broken.

The garage owner cheered me up by giving me a Norev R16 plastic toy car.

Of all my toy cars, it was the smoothest riding one in the sand pit.

[Sudsprint]

Great recollections from 1970s land

[Noel Tidybeard]

While the yellow TX was parked at the Chiemsee Yacht Club arse end to the club house,

a 4-year-old girl fell off the balcony on the second floor above.

She fell through the back window, took out the parcel shelf, and landed on the boot floor.

She had no injuries that couldn't be cured with a bag of Haribo gummi bears.

That's safety for you. Not airbags.

soft renner suspension for the win

[Noel Tidybeard]

funnily enuff the back box fell off th renner 12 my dad and his mate made a tail pipe from some scaff pole with hangers welded on and we ran it for about 6 months iirc it sounded excellent to a 11 yo yoof

[junkyarddog]

One for sale

 

http://cars.donedeal.ie/vintagecars-for-sale/renault-16-tl-1975-lhd/7553723

 

 

Looks decent enough.

[Junkman]

See, 48 oval holes.

 

 

I can remember this after 40 years!