I'll be honest, I don't really know much about it, but I already love it because it looks so French and funky.
That was the closest thing to a French GTI we got in the States back in those days.
OMG! I was 15 when these were new, and I badly wanted one. I remember car magazine review of the hardtop, and they were very impressed with the handling.
Interesting! Looks like a K-car mated with an E30 vert. "Le K"
1983 Motor Trend Car of the Year, by the way.
One of the big car mags did some suspension work to one of those when they were new and got it to pull over 1 g on a skid pad. One of the hardtops would be cool.
Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:1983 Motor Trend Car of the Year, by the way.
I'll go the other way - dude called it a "rare car" but not one I'd ever want. Not a fan of the 'vert looks but I do remember them new and they showed a white color one that looked decent.
It's 1983 - buy a VW Rabbit GTi.
This might be the car that finally caused that AMC Kenosha plant to close. No memory of the le Car or Fuego Turbo?
Datsun240ZGuy said:Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:1983 Motor Trend Car of the Year, by the way.
I'll go the other way - dude called it a "rare car" but not one I'd ever want. Not a fan of the 'vert looks but I do remember them new and they showed a white color one that looked decent.
It's 1983 - buy a VW Rabbit GTi.
This might be the car that finally caused that AMC Kenosha plant to close. No memory of the le Car or Fuego Turbo?
Oh yeah. These things were unredeemable E36 M3boxes. The fact that it got COTY has been a joke for 40 years.
Such odd little ducks that you can't help but like them. I don't remember them being particular stout or dependable but yeah French.
MT COTY went to whoever spent the most money on advertising.
I worked at a dealer that sold Renaults back in 86 and that one is in it's natural element. Either on a hook, on a trailer or on a truck but rarely under their own power. They were not reliable cars.
My sister had a new one. I can hear the parts falling off as I look at the above picture.
From 1985-1987 I worked with this guy that was a dick to deal with and he drove one of those Renault Fuego Turbo (Turbo II??) and I always thought he was a miserable guy cause he drove that car.
(hopefully I didn't offend too many Fuego fans)
In reply to Datsun240ZGuy :
I don't consider myself a dick but I do have a soft spot for Fuegos and have low key been open to a clean(LOL) one for a long time. Learned to drive stick in an 83 that my parents had. It got scrapped with under 30k on the odometer.
First offended Fuego guy in 75 minutes.....LOL
Once again I must apologize.
Not offended
The rear suspension is a transverse torsion bar, which looks freakin' sweet dropped one spline. The downside is having to cut almost all the travel out of the front to get it to sit level.
People really hate on these cars but I've had a couple and they are not really any mechanically different or less reliable than a period VW. The problem was just that the dealer infrastructure sucked ass and nobody was ever actually trained to work on them correctly. Parts are actually still pretty available, you just have to wait for them to come from overseas.
You do want a hardtop GTA over the convertible, though.
Didn't know you could get the GTA in a convertible. Saw a regular convertible at the junkyard today, it was in surprisingly good shape.
You'll need to log in to post.
