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A Safrane goes back on the road!


RustyNuts

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I’d count myself as one of the lucky few that have driven a Safrane. They were a really nice car especially the later ones such as yours, if I remember parts were tricky to get even back in the day? I remember my uncle having a right pain trying to get hold of a set of rear brake discs that weren’t a million quid from Renault. 

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Love to see a Safrane being kept going. About 20 years ago my parents bought a pretty low spec phase one 2 litre from an auction. It had a dodgy history - model designations on the wings were different and we found broken glass in every nook and cranny. But it was a lovely barge that did them well for years, albeit with some very French electrical gremlins. Felt so much more modern than the bluebird it replaced or my 309. 
 

I prefer the front on the phase 1, the more modern grill clashed slightly for me but that wouldn’t stop me from having one. 

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Whatever happened to that other Safrane on here that was having a semi-epic 'light resto'?? I cannot for the life of me remember who had it, but I remember it was pissing power steering fluid everywhere at some stage. Did it ever get sorted and back on the road?

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8 minutes ago, barrett said:

Whatever happened to that other Safrane on here that was having a semi-epic 'light resto'?? I cannot for the life of me remember who had it, but I remember it was pissing power steering fluid everywhere at some stage. Did it ever get sorted and back on the road?

@Andyrew's one?

 

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38 minutes ago, barrett said:

Whatever happened to that other Safrane on here that was having a semi-epic 'light resto'?? I cannot for the life of me remember who had it, but I remember it was pissing power steering fluid everywhere at some stage. Did it ever get sorted and back on the road?

Think this was @Schaefftone 3.0 v6 exec, went to @flat4alfa, I took it up north in a thunderstorm with the wiper motor in the boot and loosing its pa's fluid to @catsinthewelderwho won it in a roffle and ran it for a while, now owned by @Six-cylinderand @Andyrew

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Apologies for gatecrashing your thread with this, but thought this snippet of Safrane history ought to be captured for posterity, and as your Safrane milkshake has already brought all the Safrane fanciers to the yard....

A few years ago I worked for a Peterborough based diesel engine manufacturer.  Languishing in the corner of the works car park was a Phase 1 Safrane (met green). Shitters in the car park were not unusual, my period of employment coincided with Xbollox. Anyway, this Safrane was a bit special, as it was an former development vehicle, housing a specially developed executive class 2.5 litre V6, twin turbo, Bosch VE diesel.  It was called the 'sunshine' project, and sadly after building several prototypes, including this fully functioning Safrane, it was eventually scrapped.

The Sunshine engine was, by all accounts an absolute peach, it developed about 168bhp and had received significant NVH benchmarking to place it well ahead of any contemporaries.

Apparently the Safrane was trailered over to France to be demonstrated to Renault top brass, but they decided to pursue their own in house 4cyl diesels instead.

What might have been eh?

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