A Thread For One Of The Most Biggest Sh!tlumps..

[Guest YellowJacket894]

The first time I put my eyes on that car in Car & Driver, my eyes began to bleed. It looked like a beached whale, and it had a face that could blow off a manhole cover.

Not only that but Renault wanted that to be a poor man's Porsche 928. Pffft... Yeah, sure. Whatever you say, Renault.

Reliability sucked, styling sucked, the engine sucked, interior... Could the Renault Fuego be the biggest $h!box under the Yugo and Pacer? I would think so.

[bobo]

Heh, I actually liked the styling of that car. Taking the era, the mid-'80's, into context, the car actually had some flair. This car brings to mind the late '80's Renault Alpine:

[Croc]

I really like the headlight covers on the Alpine. Renault was ahead of its time with those...

As for the Fuego, it looks no worse than any other 80s car...

[razoredge]

I think the Fuego was early 80's wasnt it ? Not much to look at thats for sure. It seems to me they were making quite a fuss about it at the time, I really dont remember much.that was 20+ years ago. My friend still has his R 17 Gordini, that too had a problematic engine and is the reason the car is still around because it never ran for long. He had a head or head gasket problem but back then we didnt know much and he knew less and had even less ambition so didnt bother trying to figure out the problem and cure it. It simply pumped the coolant out the overflow, now I know that was headgasket, back then we thought it was overheating and boiling it out, even though the gauge read normal, we didnt know The car got passed around to a few friends and never made to run, then it came back and has since sat and most likely the undercarraige is shot. We liked it at the time, it was pretty quick for the times and was in near perfect condition but that darn engine just wouldnt keep coolant. Seems funny that by early 80's turbo Renault V6's were blowin the doors off most other engines in open wheel formulas. I think this R17 Gordini was the car that preceded the Fuego. It too is not much to look at, it was kinda interesting at the time from certain angles but.....

[Drew Dowdell]

How much does one of those run ya?

[Sixty8panther]

This thread is in the twillight zone!

Yesterday I saw a Renault Gordini for the first time in my life...

It as at the junkyard next to a 60s Jaguar. I was laughing about the cool/dorky hardtop design combined wiht the webasto sunnroof. XP715 broke a vent window on it beacause he said it made him "angry just looking at it".

It was the topic of conversstion off and on for the rest of the day. Hours later we were driving around in the Datsun and he's just like WTF is up wiht that Gordini. Jeeezus!

[Croc]

You wanna talk twilight zone? There was a Vauxhaul parked at 30th and University this morning. Seriously...talk about random!

[LosAngeles]

Damn, Croc...wish I was there to see that.

As far as that Gordini, 68, your boy XP wasn't right to break that window. Lookswise, however, makes me think of a Plymouth Arrow and an early Skyline having a kid. As many cars as I know about, I've never seen that car a day in my entire life.

[Flybrian]

XP715 broke a vent window on it beacause he said it made him "angry just looking at it".

Did you turn him in for COLD BLOODED MURDER!!!!!!

[Drew Dowdell]

The other day when I was at the local GM Megaplex, there was an elderly lady sitting in an absolutly mint condition 1974 Plymouth Scamp 2 door hardtop.

It was like this car.

[Cadillacfan]

The only car that would look better after you crashed it into brick wall.

[NeonLX]

I thought the Fuego was pretty sharp-looking, for the time anyway.

The car I couldn't stand was the early Datsun 200 SX that looked like this:

The F10 and B210 weren't too hot-looking either.

And for some reason, the Honda del Sol (sp?) really pisses me off when I see it as well. It's a completely irrational response on my part but that car just really gets to me.

[Guest YellowJacket894]

Damn, that Datsun you posted Neon looks like a molested '88 Dodge Daytona.

Hang on, let me post another car I consider to borderline on "$h!lump".

[Guest YellowJacket894]

Sorry for the double post, but this next car is a part of my childhood that sort of scares me.

My mom owned a white 1985 Nissan Pulsar until late '93 or early '94, when we traded it off to a '93 Cavalier RS in maroon.

The car above is an '85 Pulsar and a rather ugly car at that. Don't get me wrong, Nissan is one of the very, very few Japanese car makers I like and want to see selling cars for a good, long time. But this is one car that is a styling catastrophy. And, as I recollect, it would always quit in traffic at redlights at random. (It was a manual, but, still I've been in countless manual-transmission cars and trucks that hardly ever quit at redlights whenever it felt like it.)

One hideous focal point of the Pulsar was that damnable grille and whole front fascia. Makes me think Nissan cut, copied and pasted the front of a certain car onto the Pulsar...

(Yes, Virgina, that's a 1980 Porsche 924 Turbo.)

Thankfully, Nissan got it right eventually. (What? It looks better than that $h!lump.)

[razoredge]

All those Datsun/Nissans were pitiful, see they ran out of great European & American cars to riplicate so they went off on their own and the true colors came shinin through.

That Scamp on the other hand was a perfect car. Nicely styled with no overstatement and no weak proportions to screw it up. A perfect car for the people and sell it did. The rear window is a fine piece of art.

[Sixty8panther]

XP is his own man... I thought it was funny that he would grab the first piece of some rusted metal nearby.... (control arm off a 60s International Harvester probably) and break in a piece of glass on it while yelling at he car for being so ugly.

Mind you the American classics get nothing but love and respect from him.

Edited January 14, 2006 by Sixty8panther

[XP715]

I stick by my decision. These botched abortions are another engineering triumph by the French, the people that brought you New Orleans! Leave it to the French to build a city twenty feet below sea level; we all see how well that turned out. All you Renault owners out there should be fearful of your lives if the French are twice as good at building cars as they are with city planning.

[Sixty8panther]

Love the Japanese Foghat album over.... pretty amusing! SO that's how you spell "foghat" in Nipponese.

[the_yellow_dart]

Take it easy on the French. They may be rude, but I don't think they're any more incompitant than other European nations.

P.S. If you're so upset about French engineering, what do you think of the Statue of Liberty

[XP715]

I love Lady Liberty, and I think the Eiffel Tower is pretty neat too. Kinda sad that they were more advanced in the 1800's than they are now. Remember, this is the country where 85% of their 14,802 heat wave deaths can be attributed to the fact that nobody owns an air conditioner; not even most hospitals have them! Kind of ironic for a country that loves to toot its own horn about how f@#king sophisticated they are. Makes me want to rush right out and buy a Citroen... almost.

[Sixty8panther]

There's THREE Citroens in that Junkyard, remember? Or was. They were piled high as if ready to get crushed last time... who knows what fate awaited them.

[the_yellow_dart]

Maybe that's an energy conservation thing... I wish people around here would take a hint and turn down the a-c when we have power problems on really hot days. I don't have air myself.

[Sixty8panther]

I highyl doubt an entire counrtry refuses to buy ACs just fior energy conservation reasons. Their socialist gorernment probably will not allow them or some other dumb thing.

Edited January 14, 2006 by Sixty8panther

[Croc]

The power grids should be strengthened to allow for people using their ACs.

[the_yellow_dart]

Working for Ontario Power Generation, I understand a bit more about energy production and consumption now, and why really hot days are really hard on the system and the designers.

Since our power grid is connected across most of North America, we have a huge capacitance from all the transmission lines. Put simply, the lines themselves can hold a bit of power. If production outstrips consumption on a given day, the lines just increase their capacitance slightly, and obviously the same is true in reverse. This does not constitute a "battery" however, as there is no simple or compact way to store that much power. Power is (basically) generated and consumed at the same time.

You can compare of large-scale energy production and consumption to a car's electrical system. Your altenator, in a real car with a battery, just has to charge the battery. Imagine if there was no battery and your altenator had to be ready to deal with you cranking up the radio, a/c, and headlights at the same time. That altenator would have to be much beefier, and output much more power all the time. This would make the whole system inefficient.

Same goes for large-scale power generation. It is hard to justify upping the generation capacity just for those few days a year when everyone decides they NEED the inside of their house to be 20c/70f. I'm not talking unreasonable amounts of adjustment here, but if everybody would just be OK with 75 or 80, and turned their a/c off or down when they weren't home, we wouldn't have as many problems as we do. California especially - that state has to get some more generating capacity or they're going to be in serious trouble soon.

[Flybrian]

I stick by my decision. These botched abortions are another engineering triumph by the French, the people that brought you New Orleans! Leave it to the French to build a city twenty feet below sea level; we all see how well that turned out. All you Renault owners out there should be fearful of your lives if the French are twice as good at building cars as they are with city planning.

That's just ignorant thinking.

As far as power generation goes, France is snarter than us at one thing. They have an amazing nuclear grid.

[razoredge]

air conditioning is for lame blatting pussys. Deaths are good for socioty, if we did not have air conditioning survival of the fittest would once again apply and the world would be rid of these whimpy assed pussys. We have energy concernes and these lame ducks have more lights running up their driveways than the average person has in their house and they are on from dusk till dawn.

So my question is are the wimps scared of the dark or are they ignorantly arrogant ? ............BOTH ! Arrogant whimps afraid of the dark and outside elements who dont give a damn about anything, unless its necessary during conversation.

Edited January 14, 2006 by razoredge

[Drew Dowdell]

People in france die when it gets up to 89 degrees..... have they never heard of ice tea?!?

[Croc]

Deaths are good for socioty, if we did not have air conditioning survival of the fittest would once again apply

If deaths are good for society, could we raise society's collective I.Q. by cleansing it from you? Just a thought :AH-HA_wink:

One can take any "survival of the fittest" argument and turn it around. Razor, why don't you show some compassion for someone other than blue-collar UAW workers for a change?

Edited January 14, 2006 by Croc

[pow]

If deaths are good for society, could we raise society's collective I.Q. by cleansing it from you?  Just a thought :AH-HA_wink:

ROFL... I nearly choked on my middle-class-organic-chai-tea-with-vitamin-water-ice-cubes-on-greenie-recycled-napkin after reading that.

Best. Quote. Ever.

[Croc]

vitamin-water-ice cubes?! Shoot...I need to get me some of those...

[razoredge]

[ocnblu]

"Vitamin water ice cubes"... that's SOOO California... :AH-HA_wink: