Odd French behemoth seen earlier.....

[dutchie01]

 

hmmmm.....

designed and produced by Matra from 2001 to 2003. Low sales but expected therefore not produced at Renault. In todays cardesign the CX value needs combined with one box styling. Crossovers with batteries. Just look at the majority of all cars launched today. Take the badges off and try to guess the brand!

Cars like the Velsatis avantime but also peugeot 1007, fiat multipla etc were styling excercises and a breath of fresh air in their time!

( the doors of the avantime were an engineering piece of art but also horribly stupid ..)

[Herbie]

1 hour ago, superatticman said:

This was a problem with the Ford Scorpio. The reasonable, conservative looking early 90s Granada was turned into a hideous looking car. Sure, it was  comfy, reasonably reliable, fairly low cost luxury. But you wouldn't have been seen dead in it. 

I was a big fan of the Granada back in the day. The picture below is not my actual car but I did have one of these, the Sapphire Edition. It was the last one I had because the Scorpio took over, looking like a big jelly mould.

[Spacewagon52]

My father-in -law had a 1976 Granada - what a lemon! Rust everywhere -, clutch change and slap in the transmission. A real dog. No thank you!

[Herbie]

1 hour ago, Spacewagon52 said:

My father-in -law had a 1976 Granada - what a lemon! Rust everywhere -, clutch change and slap in the transmission. A real dog. No thank you!

Strange. I had a Mk.1 and two Mk.2s and they were brilliant cars. When I couldn't get another because it became the Scorpio, I moved over to the Rover 800 series; first an 827SLi and then an 800 Sterling.

[First_Lexus]

On 6/22/2021 at 8:51 PM, dutchie01 said:

 

hmmmm.....

designed and produced by Matra from 2001 to 2003. Low sales but expected therefore not produced at Renault. In todays cardesign the CX value needs combined with one box styling. Crossovers with batteries. Just look at the majority of all cars launched today. Take the badges off and try to guess the brand!

Cars like the Velsatis avantime but also peugeot 1007, fiat multipla etc were styling excercises and a breath of fresh air in their time!

( the doors of the avantime were an engineering piece of art but also horribly stupid ..)

This is worth a watch for those interested in the Avantime. I loved it when it was launched, and still love it now! Vive la France!

 

[DanD]

On 6/21/2021 at 9:20 PM, First_Lexus said:

Brave design, different in a terribly French way. Always wanted one, but I’m not as brave as the designers were. The Avantime is a future classic and even bolder.

Citroen C6 is/was a contemporary oddity, with the fable but woefully unreliable air suspension.

The reason you still see plenty of Renault 4 (and 12) and Peugeot 404/405/505 on the African continent is not because they were reliable cars but because they were easily available in countries that often were previously French colonies. Peugeot and Renault would sell obsolete assembly lines for cheap and production would carry on locally. The cars often had 'previous generation' engines to make maintenance as cheap and easy as possible.

Same principle as the VW Beetle that was built in Brazil until fairly recently and Hindustan cars built in India as re-badged Morris Oxford.

[First_Lexus]

13 minutes ago, DanD said:

Same principle as the VW Beetle that was built in Brazil until fairly recently and Hindustan cars built in India as re-badged Morris Oxford.

^^ Not to mention the Fiat 124 / Lada 1200 (later the Riva) / FSO 1300/1500. From memory they were still being made under licence in Egypt until about 2013 after production finished in Russia. As an aside, you can buy the Lada Niva (in LHD) in the UK even now! I’d love one personally…

https://lada4x4.co.uk/

The Hindustan Ambassador was actually available in the UK for a while back in the 90s. Mahindra also imported their version of the Jeep for a while.

[paulrnx]

On 6/23/2021 at 12:13 AM, Herbie said:

Strange. I had a Mk.1 and two Mk.2s and they were brilliant cars. When I couldn't get another because it became the Scorpio, I moved over to the Rover 800 series; first an 827SLi and then an 800 Sterling.

I had a Scorpio estate as a company car. It was like driving my leather sofa down the road although it didn’t handle as well as my sofa. A hateful car and I couldn’t wait to get rid. I always liked the boxy ones before.

[superatticman]

On 7/6/2021 at 8:36 AM, paulrnx said:

I had a Scorpio estate as a company car. It was like driving my leather sofa down the road although it didn’t handle as well as my sofa. A hateful car and I couldn’t wait to get rid. I always liked the boxy ones before.

Love it how we've got onto Grannys 🙂

But yes I liked the boxy old Mk2's. Wasn't there a rare range topping 2.8i Ghia X Executive model which had leather and air con? Something of which back then was generally only available on the likes of the upper end of the E class,  Jags etc. 

 

 

 

[Las Palmas]

On 7/1/2021 at 6:02 PM, DanD said:

The reason you still see plenty of Renault 4 (and 12) and Peugeot 404/405/505 on the African continent is not because they were reliable cars

I lived in Africa more than 10 years and disagree when you say they are not reliable. The CT we have is great for where we live now, but boy it would not last long in the mountain roads where I lived then.