Results tagged “renault” from Liverpool Echo - Driving Passion

Good morning BFPO Frankfurt. How are things in the Rhineland?

Due to strategic commitments at HQ I am forced to follow events through dispatches but it all sounds jolly conceptual.

Had I known the entire European electorate was going to be so inclined towards protest voting | would have taken the opportunity to launch my own political party.

And jolly well it would have done too, given the ever so slight far-right connotations of its name: Joy Through Motoring.

I doubt as you sit reading this your bottom is on your mind at all and if it is may I just congratulate you on adopting such an interesting posture while eating breakfast.

The frequent human presumption is that the word bottom is being used in the context of anatomy. Indeed, just take a moment to consider how important this part of the body, often relegated behind the needs of the face, hands and feet, is and what a mess we would be in without one. I am utterly convinced that sitting directly on the hips would be very painful and as we would not need seats, wonder what shape cars would be if they were driven by people standing up. Very tall probably.

Some time ago, long enough in fact to interest Tony Baldrick and his hairy time teamers, I owned a Renault 5 TS. Wow, I hear you say, it would be worth good money to see a trench through the north courtyard turn up a Roman soldier's shaving kit and parts of what, in pre-Gordini days, passed for a French hot hatch.
Let me draw you a map. It had a 1.6-litre, yes that's a whole1600cc, engine with hardly the power to pull Toulouse-Lautrec off your granny.
That, however, was fine because the gearbox was filled with Corsican pottery which you mixed around with an interesting sports gear lever so long it could double as a walking stick.
It was, none the less, revolutionary, being the first car ever, I believe, to be built out of Formica. And in it, delusion suggested, I cut quite a dash.
The essential in those days was an integral head rest, not one of those jobbies you clipped over the back of the front seats and would do no more to protect your neck than a 15th century executioner. The TS had fully sculpted high-backed sports seats with little triangles cut out for your hair.
So mad or what? Well, I sold it to a fellow motoring journalist who subsequently ran off with a girl half his age then had the nerve to demand the cost of a broken half-shaft. The car's not his.
If Renault still made cars as poor as those around in the Great European Communist period, I would have taken up road testing horses. But they don't, they make cars like the new Laguna Coupe which from the rear three-quarters has something of Aston Martin glamour about it.
The two-litre GT Turbo 205 three-door is a good yardstick of the range. Costing £23,900 it is suitably quick reaching 62mph in under eight seconds, not scary stuff but in that is the story. The coupe is unruffled and refined in a straight line and through the corners, all helped by steerable rear wheels which come into play at speeds above 37mph. Less peace and love, though, to the flat-bottomed steering wheel which makes your hands feel they have dropped off the edge of the world.
Consumption is pretty average at 34mpg and owners will be paying tax in band F
Comfort and equipment outstrips performance by a country mile. The GT has keyless entry, Bluetooth, leather seats parking sensors and big, fat alloys. Sat nav is not standard and would havebeen nice at the price.
Of course, being a coupe there is the age-old question of the back seats. Yes, you can take two friends to the theatre just so long as you have very small friends.
However, beware. Just like some young women, the two-litre GT in some ways flatters to deceive. Yes it is stunning to look at and very well equipped and finished but turns out to feel not quite as racy you may have hoped.

It may be great fun to sit at the flashing controls of a modern car and make all sorts of Star Trek noises but when the technology goes all E.T. you may wish for a starting handle or a sturdy tow rope.
Mike Nethercote gets up at 4am every day to manage a dairy. At 4am with half a city looking down the barrel of dry cornflakes, not being able to get in your car is no joke.