56 LA RENAULT 10/2015 renaultclassiccarclub.com

Club Officials

Chairman Gary Creighton 01507 327784 Vice Chairman John Pigeon 01507 328364 Club Secretary Tony Topliss 01476 573212 Treasurer Fred Parker 01825 712916 Membership Secretary Fred Parker 01825 712916 La Renault Editor Fred Parker 01825 712916 Registrars & Coordinators 4CV / 750 Robin Redrup 01480 434984 R4 / R6 Derek Flavell 07816 586642 R5 Tony Topliss 01476 573212 R8 / R10 Nigel Patten 01276 25426 R12 Robert Doran 01395 271116 R16 Paul Draper 01962 793375 R15 / R17 David Kelly 01978 843253 R18 / Fuego Richard Birchenough 01270 764912 Alpine 110 Phil Gardner 01446 710682 Dauphine Malcolm Rogers 01933 357556 Floride / Caravelle Malcolm Rogers 01933 357556 Competition Secretary Nigel Patten 01276 25426 Spares Coordinator Robin Redrup 01480 434984 National Events Len Kiff 01992 420305 Wales Dave Wheeler 02920 309815 Scotland Steven Swan 01738 633788 Ireland Seamus McElvanna 07751 057707 North West David Austin 07850 656663 Peter Bell 01606 44586 Yorkshire Derek Sparks 01845 597942 Lincoln & Yorkshire Duncan Topliss 01476 563753 East & East Anglia Len Kiff 01992 420305 South East Tony Nappin 01329 285160 South West Robert Doran 01395 271116 2

Editor's Ramblings! 911euf@gmail.com

W elcome, to this, our largest maga-zine ever! It breaks two records at the same time, the most num-ber of pages and also the largest number of copies printed, three hundred and fifty! For a little club this is a huge achievement. If you consider that the population of this country is approaching sixty five million and a popular magazine such as Classic Car Weekly, available in retailers through-out the UK, has a circulation of only twenty thousand, the whole classic car market is actually tiny. Factor in the number of older Renaults currently on the road and our own potential market is also ... extremely tiny! We have two renewal dates, April and Oc-tober, and notices go out in the magazines for those months. Most of April's renewals have now come in and, once again, we have had a very high percentage renew. What concerns all of us on the committee, however, is the number of more recent members who do not renew, which brings us to the question - what do you expect from your club? Nearly sixty members have 4CVs / 750s, just behind them is members with Renault 4s. The only real similarity between the two cars is that they have a Renault badge so how on earth can we keep both groups of owners happy? We also have a lot of 5s, 8s, 10s, 12s and 16s, again totally different cars. My own cars a 10 and a Caravelle have nothing in com-mon with a 16, so what do we do to inter-est everybody?

The most obvious answer is the magazine. I have now been editor for a few years and have churned out nearly thirty magazines. I am quite happy doing this and unless I fall under a bus or get eaten by one of my giant rabbits I will continue to do so. I can-not do it by myself, however, and rely on you - the members - to help me out and this is where the diversity of cars becomes one. (A variety of articles in the mag). We have regular correspondents, whose names you all recognise, and then we have others who send in occasional contributions. When I asked for Renault 16 memories I hoped that you would rally round and you did. I sincerely hope I haven't lost anything on the way but an upgrade to Windows 10 has made one or two programs behave in a very odd way. Our accounts are now all in American dollars and I can find no way to return them to pounds. I am not totally computer illiterate and I have the support of two teenagers and three twenty some-things to help out if need be and we are all stumped! If you sent something in and it hasn't appeared please let me know and I will instigate a search for the missing items! So, anyway, the point of all this rambling is to say an enormous thank you to those people who did write in. I was really im-pressed that so many members took the time to send me their own Renault 16 memories - some in the very distant past! However large or small, your contribution is very much appreciated. In particular Richard Allen who has spent hours and hours gathering material together and, I suspect, is using a steam powered com-puter running Windows 95 or earlier! I would also like to say an enormous thank you to Mark Waller at Renault UK. Gary contacted him regarding the possibility of a small contribution to our stand at the NEC and he really has come up trumps, funding a considerable part of our display. Mark, thank you very much! 3

Editor's Ramblings! 01825 712916 Also, thank you very much to Dave Stevens for his artwork which he has contributed without charge. If you are at the NEC this year do come and visit us. Our stand will obvi-ously feature various different models of the 16 in celebration of its 50th birthday. If you get lost we are opposite the Renault Owners' Club, next to the Fiat Owners' Club and X19 Owners in Hall 5. In other news ... Duncan Topliss has launched a Facebook page. For those of you who are on Facebook this can provide an immediate way of contacting other members and like minded people and we hope that it will grow rapidly. The Yahoo Group is still out there but when I upgraded to Windows 10 I lost my log in and so can't post anything. The Facebook page is far more satisfactory! While on the Topliss family our very best wishes go to Tony for a speedy recovery and we hope he is soon back behind the wheel of his 16. As he told me, his operation was a bit like a "cut and shut"! This summer has been a busy one for Renaults in the press. My Caravelle was in Classic & Sportscar (picture previous page) and the same magazine also ran a feature on the 16 with three of our members' cars. The centre page of this issue of La Renault features a picture courtesy of Classic & Sportscar, the picture was taken by their photographer Tony Baker. (As was the one on the previous page). And finally ... don't forget the NEC and the AGM. First picture ever of the R16. See pages 31 - 32

4

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RENAULT 16

5

a Mini, I was not in a position to acquire a 16 until the end of the eighties. The cars I eventually saw were either falling apart or were rusting very badly; at which point, I resigned myself to the fact that I would never end up owning a 16 during my lifetime. Furthermore, I started to lose interest in the car as the years went by – until February 2011. As you may recall, it was during that time that the city of Christchurch in New Zealand was badly damaged by an earthquake. For me, it was a very lucky escape, as the earthquake struck the city just seventeen hours before I was due to arrive there to spend the first night of my holiday. Even so, I had to hastily rearrange my itinerary on arrival in New Zealand, as well as assuring other family members and friends in the UK that I was fine. As a result, I ended up going to Nelson to start my trip around the South Island. Whilst looking around the town, I spot-ted a Renault 16 going past me, which certainly brought on a bit of a mid-life crisis. The possibility of owning a 16 as a clas-sic car only dawned on me when I was looking around the ‘Wonderful World of Wearable Art and Collectable Cars' mu-seum on the outskirts of Nelson the fol-lowing day. Moreover, my garage at home had sufficient space to accommo-date an additional car, next to a Renault Avantime, so at least I could keep my future car protected from the elements. On my return to the UK, I started to look through the various classic car magazines to see if any 16s were being advertised for sale. The breakthrough finally came in March 2012, when a TL Auto came up for sale near Merthyr Tyd-

An Earthquake Rekindled My Interest In A Renault 16

T he very first time I went in a Ren-ault 16 was c.1968. At such a young age (I was only six at that time!), I did not fully appreciate what a great car it was, until I started to learn to drive. Unfortunately, owing to a lack of finances and also confidence in driv-ing a somewhat larger car compared to

6

Anthony Horwood

come, which enabled me to take the car over to France in order take part in the recent 50th anniversary celebrations of the 16 this year. This would not have been possible, had it not been for all the advice and help I have received from fellow 16 owners within the club, to whom I am extremely grateful. Further-more, I am very indebted to Mike Stokes for sorting out the ‘Can of Worms’ I gave him last year, and for the continuing improvements he is making to my car, as this will enable me to take part in more trips and events. Finally, I wish to pass on my sincere thanks to Malcolm Bailey who kindly sourced my car in the first place, thus fulfilling a long time wish to own a Renault 16.

fil, however the car needed extensive work to bring it up to an acceptable standard. Then shortly afterwards, like buses, two more 16s came up for sale – a TL Auto at a local garage and a TS at an auction. Being a manual, the TS would have been my preferred choice, but it had been off the road for the past ten years. Not knowing what I was go-ing to be taking on from a liability point of view, I decided not to attend the auc-tion to place a bid. On the other hand, the body work and interior of the TL Auto were in such good condition for its age, that I went ahead and purchased the car. Soon afterwards, I found out that the car had belonged to a former RCCC member, who had sadly passed away. However I did meet up with his widow who very kindly gave me past service records dating back to when the car was first registered in this country, as well as other literature relating to the 16. Also, the car was affectionately known as ‘Thum’, due to its number plate being ‘THU 245M’. There certainly have been quite a few challenges since the acquisition, as the car had been out of use and not been serviced for some while. These have been steadily (and continue to be) over-

Finally, making it to France for the 50th Anni-versary Celebrations of the Renault 16.

7

When Renault Set The Standard

W hen Renault released the first press photographs of its “1500” in October 1964, it unknowingly introduced drivers to a new form of motoring life. Fifty years ago, the idea of a medium-sized, front-wheel-drive saloon with five doors aimed at the sort of

young architect who affected Jean Luc Godard shades indoors, would have been as outlandish as Edward Heath playing keyboards for Gerry & The Pacemakers. Renault’s first front-driven hatchback was the R4 of 1961 but that was a rival to the Citroën 2CV, while the 16, as the “1500” was now badged, was an alternative to the Simca 1500, the Peugeot 404 and the Citroën ID19. The 16’s aluminium 1,470cc engine was new, and also powered the Series 1 Lotus Europa. There were front disc brakes and the styling by Philippe Charbonneaux was dis-tinctive and airy; there was little of the thick-pillared gloom still felt by the occupants of an Austin A60 Cambridge in this slice of effortless Gallic design. The soft ride was designed to cope with autoroute and rural track alike, while in order to accommodate the torsion bar sus-pension, the 16 had an asymmetrical wheelbase, the distance between the wheels on the left being nearly three inches longer than on the right. The 16 was formally launched in March 1965 and at that time the combination of a 1.5-litre power plant and a hatchback invariably meant an estate version of an utterly conventional, rear-wheel-drive family saloon to most British drivers. BMC made smaller front-drive saloons but neither the Mini nor the Morris 1100 was ever officially offered as a hatchback. Although the Austin A40 Countryman had a tailgate and “two-box” styling, it was a much smaller, cheaper and far more conventional car than this new offering from Renault. The 16 was in fact the best of both worlds, a saloon with a hatchback and the space of a van if required. “Today’s car for today’s man,” stated the adverts and Renault’s publicity made much of the seven differ-ent seating configurations; the rear bench could be adjusted fore and aft or removed 8

Michael Hamilton's beautiful example

Andrew Roberts

altogether and, should you so wish, the backrest could be suspended from the ceiling. The dashboard looked as though it hailed from a science-fiction B-film spaceship and the handbrake was a masterpiece of awkwardness, but these minor foibles could not mask the 16’s blend of comfort, versatility and sheer verve. In the UK the £919 asking price of a 16 GL might also have bought you the leather-trimmed respectability of a Wolseley 16/60 but that already be-longed to a past England of smog and Woodbine cigarettes. Meanwhile, the distinctly French Renault represented the opportunity to become renowned as the Alain Delon of Weybridge. In 1966 the Renault 16 became the first French product to win the European Car of the Year award and two years later the TS version was fitted with a 1,565cc engine and extra instru-ments to make it a veritable Cortina 1600E rival. September 1973 saw the debut of the ulti-mate 16, the TX, with a 1,647cc engine and a rear roof spoiler. The equipment list included central locking, electric front windows and a five-speed gearbox with which to tempt Dolomite Sprint owners towards front-wheel-drive motoring, but for all of the TX’s flamboyant Gordini wheels, it was still very recognisably a 16. Renault did not believe in change for its own sake; a steering column-mounted gear change, originally fitted to create a completely flat floor, was retained until the end of production. When the last 16 left the Ren-ault works in January 1980, few other young pretenders – the chronically underdeveloped Aus-tin Maxi, the VW Passat, the Chrysler Alpine or even the Citroën GSA – could ever seem to match the 16’s sheer charm or its impact. Sales in the UK were strong but few examples re-main on British roads, largely due to corrosion. But whether a cherished survivor is the sober looking TL or the quad headlamp magnificence of the TX, any 16 is a vivid reminder of the heights to which a mass-produced car could aspire. 9

Wind tunnel testing from Richard Allen

From The Archives ...

S ome years ago, member David Wadsworth sent me the letter opposite and the photos on this page. He has not renewed this year and I have been unable to make contact.

10

23 11

Tony Gomis John Waterhouse

12

W hen we returned to the UK in 1983, I set about getting my-self a suitable car. I wanted something comfortable, versatile and a good tow car, as I was already compet-ing in the R8G and, later, in the Alpine. An R16, preferably a TX, fitted the bill. By chance, I came across one at a local Renault dealer, Red Lion Garage, in Barnes, SW London. It was in metallic grey, 30,000 on the clock and ideal for me; however the dealer was reluctant to sell it, preferring to pass it on via 'the trade' because it had a couple of minor faults, including what they termed a gearbox leak. Clearly they didn't want any complaints from stroppy customers. By convincing them that I was a Renault enthusiast, and had reasonable mechanical under-standing, I was able to convince them to sell it to me on an 'as seen, no come-backs' basis. The gearbox leak consisted of a mild weep, requiring topping up every 5000 miles or so. I've always believed that if a Renault of the 60's and 70's DIDN'T leak, then it couldn't possibly be a genuine one ... I had the car for four years. We did 30 or 40 thousand miles, with absolutely no problems. I towed the rig (well ex-c e e d i n g t h e m a x t o w a b l e weight ...) out to Spain several times. It was fast ( by the standards of the time), very comfortable and exceed-ingly versatile. My only gripe was the absence of somewhere to park one's left foot, because of the proximity of the clutch pedal to the central tun-nel (only a problem, I suppose, on RHD cars). I regret selling it, it was a great car, and a trusty friend.

I see you are looking for R16 pho-tos. Given the slightest encourage-ment …

My father’s 16TS, when brand new in 1970 in Adelaide, South Australia.

A 16TS at Collingrove Hillclimb in South Australia (the Sporting Car Club of SA claims to be the second oldest such club in the world)

12

Description opposite top.

John Waterhouse

(Bottom of previous page). A 16TS in the 1968 London-Sydney Marathon, cruising through a creek bed in the Flin-ders Ranges of South Australia.

A couple of photos of our 1976 16TS Special, one owner on from us. This car is completely original and drives near perfectly (by now at some 220,000 km I imagine) and lives in Melbourne. The 16TS Specials were the final batch as-sembled in Melbourne and had French

velour seats, metallic paint, the steel sports wheels and a TX steering wheel, but really were bog standard 16TS mod-els, albeit by then with the much stronger South African front suspen-sion. We had two of them and they were fabulous – I used to cruise at 140 kph between Adelaide and Melbourne. I want one too, but with power steering and air conditioning not driven from the wrong end of the camshaft!

Easter camp, near Adelaide, South Australia, 1982. Four friends all with R16s – quite popular in Oz at the time!

13

We had a spectacular cake made by my local baker to celebrate the occasion with different coloured R16s emblazoned on it. One of the hotel staff kindly had us stand on the stairs and took a flatter-ing picture of us all. We had the cake after our evening meal and it tasted de-licious. The Saturday started with a short drive and walk to Goredale Scar where a big

12

T he celebration of the Renault 16, 50th anniversary took place over the weekend 14th-17th of August where eleven R16s and one R5 took part in the event and twenty four of us at-tended the celebrations. Many of us had an unpleasant journey getting to the Hotel Rendezvous in Skipton having en-countered bad weather and accidents, but the hotel soon relaxed us with its warm welcome, polite staff, excellent food and comfort.

14

Tony Cansfield

15

surprise awaits when you finally turn the corner at the end of the path. It is like walking into a great cathedral but with no roof. A waterfall bursts out of the rock and tumbles down to a stream. Next we drove one and a half miles to the village of Malham, parked up and then walked to Malham cove, a natural feature of rock face of some three hun-dred feet high and one thousand feet wide, shaped like a great amphitheatre. Some of us walked up on to the top of it where you discover a limestone pave-ment full of clints (blocks) and grykes(gaps). Over millions of years, water and ice has fractured the rock to cause the patterns you see today. We pulled out of Malham at 12 am to drive 49 miles to Bolton, the late Fred Dibnah’s home, and had to arrive there for 2 pm. Now it is one thing in itself to begin to think where guests would like to be taken and shown, but working out the timescale to fit all the things in is something else again and you can’t help having the fear of coming across an ac-cident on the road that might hold things up or a road closed sign. Well, it was to my horror the latter sud-denly appeared. Leading five of the cars along twisty narrow lanes, and ten miles to go before we got onto the motorway the last thing you want to see is a “ROAD CLOSED AHEAD”. I slowed right down wondering what to do but decided to gingerly drive on with the others fol-lowing, expecting any moment the road would be barred off. We passed another sign and I was getting rather worried. However we came to a third sign that had cones beside it where we were able to drive on through. Road works were being done but the council had moved the cones to allow access during the

weekend. We arrived at Fred’s old place for 1.45 pm in good time for the gates opening, where Leon Pownsney, the current owner greeted us. He suddenly went into a frenzy when he saw all the R16’s parked along the road and wanted to take pictures, because he once owned a 16 in the same colour as mine, sea green metallic, and seeing them brought back memories. The visit was very entertaining with Leon pointing out the intentions of Fred’s projects, the problems Leon had had getting permission for opening the place up to carry on as Fred would have wanted and to make people aware of the beauty and fundamentals of Victo-rian engineering. Alf Molyneux, one of Fred’s best mates who steered the Avel-ing and Porter traction engine on the

Renault 16 Anniversary Tour and banks of Yorkshire, but anyway, it didn’t worry Gerry and he managed magnificently the rest of the way. Driving over the moor to Reeth, we were passed, going in the opposite di-rection, by a convoy of old Bentleys. The hills came alive by the hoots of melodi-ous horns making the sheep do a dance. Then something spooked Richard’s car. He told me, when we got to Reeth, that it suddenly went into auto wash, spray-ing windscreen wash everywhere. He had to frantically stop and pull the wir-ing off the water bottle pump to stop it. Reeth, in Swaledale, was our lunch stop, where we parked on the green to give the public a chance to have a close look at our lovely motors. Tan Hill Inn, the highest inn in England was our next stop where it was rather busy and we just managed to safely park all the cars off the road. I asked Patrick if his beer tasted any better at altitude and he said “Yes, most defi-nitely!” Again, while driving to Tan Hill the spook that Richard experienced earlier jumped onto my car and started to make the instruments go off and come back on but this turned out to be a loose fuse. We then turned south, driving out of Arkengarthdale back into Wensleydale to Hawes. This road is part of the fa-mous Beamish reliability run where one hundred and fifty vehicles older than 1956 take part in a one hundred and fifty mile jaunt taking in some real hard driving. When we arrived in Hawes I learned we had nearly had a casualty, because Robin’s Renault 5 front wheel

16

“Made in Britain” TV documentary in 2005, spoke of his encounters and amusing times in being deeply involved with Fred and his amazing life and char-acter. On Sunday we drove to Castle Bolton in Wensleydale where we were entertained by a falconry display. It is a castle of interest with nice gardens where Mary Queen of Scots resided for six months after she was defeated in 1568 at the battle of Langside. Until now we were all enjoying our anni-versary except it seemed for some of our cars, which have a way of telling you and at the most awkward times, that something is wrong. When we parked at the castle, Gerry’s hand brake, of all things, stopped working. Well this wasn’t a good thing, especially when you are motoring around the hills

Pictures: Anthony Horwood

got the wobbles. John was ready with a tow rope, (just in case), but a bit of el-bow grease applied to the wheel span-ner did the trick. Having bought some cheese from the Wensleydale creamery, petrol and other nice things, we set off for the famous Ribblehead Viaduct. Up in the wild and bleak fells of Whernside, Blea Moor and Simon Fell, stands this magnificent structure built for the Settle to Carlisle railway in 1870. At one hundred and four feet high, twenty four arches stretch a quarter of a mile long. It was

built by two thousand navvies and a hundred of them were killed in con-structing it. We hope you like the picture as it took a few goes to get all the cars parked with Robin’s R5 propping the ten 16s up like a book end. With that being the crescendo of the scenery and final stop off, we headed back for the hotel. And by the way, the weather greatly improved for the Satur-day, Sunday and Monday so I hope you all had a much better journey returning home.

17

Renault 16s et Moi!

W hy is it that some cars are ex-cluded from the top table of celebrated cars? Is it dare I say lazy or even prejudiced journalism? A fashion thing? The Renault 16 definitely deserves major recognition but doesn't really get it or seemingly begrudgingly so. I've always wondered why. What does it have to do to be recognised? I'm obviously biased towards the car but doesn't being the world's first modern hatchback count? Just a little bit? Such a fundamental change in car design and yet even now, it's just regarded as an unusual car which did well for its time ... well yes and the rest! Focuses, Cavaliers, Golfs, Maxis etc all owe a massive debt to the Renault 16. It's easily the comfiest car I've ever been. Both in terms of seats and ride and has rather nice touches like the column change gearshift and forgotten

clever design touches like the recessed cup holders found on the lid of the pas-senger glove box or quirks with its differ-ent length wheelbases like the Renault 4 and 6. The reviews gave mixed views, some fair, yes that handbrake lever is in an awkward place, some just plain silly, 'the spare wheel takes up too much space in the engine bay' ... really? Just remove it, it takes 5 seconds! but on the whole though it was rightly praised. My first encounter with the Renault 16 was my dad's '73 TL. Back then the choice was between a 16 and a Maxi and my dad, who had been recommended a 16 by a friend, headed first to the Austin dealership. "Ok, why should I buy a Maxi?" he asked the salesman. "Because it's British" he replied. "Give me a really good reason to buy it, rubbish the Renault." He couldn't. The result was one shiny new Renault 16 on our drive. With red paint and black vinyl trim it became very much a part of the family for the next nine years carrying me and my siblings to school, my dad to work and towing the caravan for our holi-days, a vital component for our family needs. As kids we stuck our sweet wrap-

The photos show my green 76 TX and the green 72 TS I found in Clapham on eBay. The photos of the TS were taken many years before I found it and came with the car's documents. It was in a really bad state.

18

pers in the rear ashtrays and created holes in the vinyl on the front seat tops by jabbing our fingers through. Mind you, on a hot day that vinyl couldn't half sting you with the heat as you sat down! It was not without its issues. If you oper-ated the rear door handle on a freezing day, it tended to stay frozen open thereby requiring a sturdy rope to tie the door shut till it got repaired. Then the passenger side window became detached from its runner and required a deft hand to guide it up and down. Another time it was handling terribly and my dad put it in for repair. 'Oh it needs a new driveshaft gaiter' said the dealer. Money changed hands but the problem remained. 'Don't understand it mate'. It turned out to be a rear tyre that had been curbed quite se-verely and was badly out of shape. The spare tyre fixed that issue. If only Watch-dog had been around in those days ... Eventually it succumbed to an overheat-ing engine which we were told had to come out for repair and would be uneco-nomical. Not having the money, it sat at home for a year before being towed to a scrap yard where it sat for a few years generously donating its gearbox to an-other ailing 16 somewhere before it finally went to that great scrap yard in the sky ... By now I was bitten by the 16 bug as was my dad and I pestered him to get another one. This turned out to be another '73 16 TL with green paint and white vinyl trim, almost identical to the '73 16 TS seen in the club. This car had had a rather chequered past as it had clearly had a rear shunt at some point in its history as the rear parcel shelf was badly rain damaged and strange welding had taken place in the boot. I remember also discovering a set of keys for another mystery Renault 16 hidden

19

for some reason in its rear light cluster ... Despite its strange past that car took us to France for a holiday and still did the school trips until it, like the previous car, overheated and gave up. It remained parked up at ours for many years before it too headed to the scrappy. Over that time and as it rusted away, I discovered lots of expanding foam that Renault saw fit to spray in the sill cavities, not good as it helped corrode the sills, indeed foam was sprayed in many R16s I believe. By this time my dad had moved on from 70s Renaults and no 16s were in our lives until I passed my test. Of course I had to have a 16 and a beautiful light blue TX conveniently came up for sale where my dad worked. Scraping together the £250 the fellow wanted, I brought back my very own 16. It was a gorgeous car. Super comfy, elec-tric windows, central locking, that five speed gearbox. I was in heaven. Trouble was the car wasn't too far off heaven it-self. The MOT two months later sealed its fate, in fact it failed on so much that the refusal certificate looked like War and Peace. Worn bushes, exhaust, rust, well mainly rust to be honest, especially in that Achilles heel for 16s, the rear sus-pension mounts. If only Renault had pro-tected that a bit better, there'd be a lot

Piers Caunter

Renault 16s et Moi!

12

more around now I imagine. It's fair to say that I learnt a lot about what to look for when buying a 16 with that car, barely two months of motoring and it was scrap. Undeterred I searched for another and found a P reg green TX in the Exchange and Mart for the princely sum of £100. It wasn't too rusty but it had a dud starter and was carried on a trailer back to mine to have the starter from the blue car fit-ted. This is not the easiest of tasks on a 16 as many an owner will testify, mainly as there's an exhaust manifold in the way. A day of fettling and swearing, shifting the rustiest of nuts, more swearing and losing lots of skin on my fingers and the starter was in! The car started up fine and duly collected its MOT. Hooray! I loved this car, it was more travelled than Michael Palin judging by the amount of travel stickers on its tailgate and had a great turn of speed. However the rear door latches were some-what dodgy, being crudely held in place by filler. Luckily I found some mint ones on an

accident damaged 16 in my regular scrap yard which were welded onto my TX. I used to love scrap yards, I miss the sense of anticipation as to what lurked within. My regular scrappy didn't have too many 16s in there but I do recall the heartbreak of seeing a mint '79 TL with gleaming red paint with a dirty great Volvo on top of her. I had the theory that the 16 was inherited by someone who didn't want it so decided it was easier to scrap than sell. It still niggles me to this day. Its en-gine bay was gleaming, very low mileage. Very frustrating! Amongst the other for-lorn 16s dotted about the yard, I remem-ber one had its rear doors welded up, probably owing to rot in the door latches like my TX. Interesting too how you'd see how times and fashions have changed, for instance, go faster stripes spelling 16 TX on one and bright orange seats in an old automatic. I did discover an old Renault 12 brochure in a car which was a nice find. Eventually due to my own dim-witted stu-pidity my green TX set fire to its wiring loom because I'd fitted the wrong regula-tor and the thought of rewiring the whole loom coupled with nasty rust appearing on those rear suspension mounts again con-spired to end its illustrious career. It was definitely my favourite 16 though. Around the same time I was given a tip off about a '79 16 TL auto with a broken auto box that was sat at the back of a Renault dealer. I had a look and she was actually in great shape and had only done 46,000 miles. Another £25 changed hands and she was brought home. I knew this wasn't a terminal case as not long before I'd seen a 16 auto for sale down the road from me that had been converted to a manual, which I wasn't even aware could be done, and so I decided I could fit my TX's gear-box to the TL. The mounts were the same and with a weekend of lots of faffing, swapping of the flywheel and adjusting the gear linkage, I successfully fitted the man-

20

Piers Caunter

21

ual five speed box and was rewarded with a car that ran me around very happily until my job in London forced me to sell it, per-haps she's still out there ... Otherwise, apart from a scrap 16TX I bought for parts, that was it for a few years but I couldn't lose the 16 bug. I de-cided that next I'd do up a 16 for a pro-ject. Seemed like a great idea! A welder was bought, trolley jacks, the works and I managed to find a suitable sounding 16 for sale in Cornwall on eBay. My friend who lived near the car in Penzance, and who probably thought I'd taken complete leave of my senses, towed her up to mine and I set to work with renewed vigour. Trouble is that very quickly you can realise you're out of your depth and with minimal weld-ing completed, I realised it was utterly beyond me and I gave her to Mike Stokes for free. I believe that some of her interior lives on in his beautiful '71 TS. My current 16 came from Mike. Again a '79 16TL auto, I bought it as it was in amazing condition and with a staggeringly low mile-age at less than 20,000. It really was the apocryphal tale of being owned by a little old lady who only used it to go to the shops and it is the nearest I've ever got to buying a new 16. It drove and indeed drives splendidly but on motorways the auto box did used to whine at anything over 50 mph, just crying out for a 4th gear. By chance, around the same time, just round the corner where I lived in

Clapham, a '72 16TS was for sale. It was very rusty but I bought it and had it towed to Mike Stokes to see if it had any future. After ascertaining that it sadly had had its day I decided to have Mike back-retro my auto by swapping the late TL dash for the TS one, swapping the plastic grill for the chrome grill, having its vinyl seats, and converting it to the manual five speed box found in the TS. Yes, I know, five speed-ers weren't standard on TS cars but this one had one, so all good! I've always thought the early 70s 16 TS cars were the ultimate 16s and the chrome suits the car better than the plastic. So I've got a TL with TS trim and a TX gearbox. It's a Ren-ault 16 TLSX perhaps! Apart from these conversions I've fitted front fog lights and had the distributor changed from its cas-sette points to the more sensible, tradi-tional points from an early 70s TL. Now I have my ideal 16 and the gearbox suits the TL engine but there are still jobs to do in the future, including getting the head stripped for hardened valve seats and sorting a water leak from the pump. My 16 still gets admiring looks from the public, everyone over 35 seems to re-member them fondly. If I have any re-grets, it's that I really wish I could use her more than I do, but work tends to prevent me from using her as much as I'd like. She's not just a car, she's a character and few cars in my view can get close. When-ever one comes up for sale I always have an urge to save it, they are so rare they should be grabbed and treasured! I wish I had the money to buy them all and re-store the lot. I remember seeing one in the TV show 'The Bill' being trashed just for a stunt, heartbreaking! I guess we all have a favourite amongst our cars but for me the Renault 16 got it spot on. Character, practicality and bags of fun. The ultimate classic car! Are you listening classic car magazine writers? Happy 50th Birthday!

T his year being the 50th anniversary of the Renault 16, the club has been ac-tive in 16 circles. Club members have attended two events in France and Tony Cansfield kindly organised the 16 weekend in Yorkshire. The main trip to France was by invitation of CAR Sandouville and took place in the Le Havre area. As a Club we had decided to make a bit more of the event so added three nights in Bruges before moving on to France. Jackie and myself stayed with Robin Redrup on the evening before departure as we were going together in my TX. Mike Stokes joined us in his TS and we set off to meet Anthony Horwood at the tunnel to cross to France. Richard Allan was going on the Dover to Cal-ais ferry and we planned to meet up in our

Renault 16 Celebration

hotel in Bruges. The others, Patrick Trench and Tony Cansfield were going directly to Le Havre. Needless to say we were caught up in the Calais industrial problems and our train got to within five minutes of Calais when it stopped for the best part of an hour in the tunnel before returning to the UK. We set off again in the evening and eventually got to our hotel about 9 pm, in time for dinner but too late for our planned walk round the cen-tre of town. The following day was spent in Bruges ex-ploring the many historic sites and eating and drinking the local fare. We also had a trip on a canal boat to take in the sites from a differ-ent perspective. The next day, six of us headed off by train to Ghent while Anthony caught another 22

Gary Creighton

train to Ostend and Richard headed off down to Le Havre in time for the tour of the Sandouville plant on Friday. We were very impressed by the Belgian train ser-vice as it was cheap, clean and very quick. Ghent old city was a larger version of Bruges with a castle, canals and some very picturesque old buildings. Once again we had good food and another river boat tour. Friday saw the rest of us leave Bruges and head for our hotel for the main event in Normandy. Our hosts CAR Sandoville laid

on two days of touring the Normandy countryside visiting many villages, Fecamp and Le Havre. Saturday saw judging of the cars and a good meal with dancing and singing in the evening ending at midnight with a firework display. Monday and it was time to head back to the tunnel and home again after a most enjoyable week. Once again Richard, who was travelling by ferry, was caught up in the strike and migrant crisis and was forced to spend an extra night in Calais.

23

24

25

The Long Distance Runner I would still own and be driving this car almost 40 years later, where has the time gone! A short warranty was given with the car and I seem to remember that the rearmost silencer was replaced under it. Not long after the warranty had expired a driveshaft did the same thing and considerable cost was incurred in replacing it. For over 6 years the 16TL gave us reli-able and of course supremely comfort-able motoring, being used for commut-ing and frequently in my work as a TV and VCR service engineer and also to take us on holiday both in the UK and in Europe. Many trips were made to France, but in addition we journeyed to Italy visiting such places as Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Lucca, Sienna, Florence and at one point getting lost [long be-fore sat nav] ending up in the marble quarries at Carrara! The trip which took us to Florence was at a point in time when DUK was fitted F ew cars get to beyond 12 to 15 years old, even fewer to 25 years and very few to 45 years of age. DUK 833 J is one such car that has sur-vived to this great age.

DUK or The Duke as coined many years ago by Tony Cansfield [the organiser of the recent, extremely successful, 50th R16 event] was a very average, just over 5 year old 16 TL sitting in a line up of second-hand motors on a garage forecourt on the southern outskirts of my home town of Rushden in Northamp-tonshire. Finished in a very matt and faded 947 green metallic with a pale beige vinyl interior, with around 63,000 miles on the clock and a price of, I think, about £800. It seemed to fit the bill. A test drive didn't show up any problems, so with the help of a loan from my parents-in-law DUK was duly purchased. Little did I realise at the time 26

Richard Allen failed. Looking up the nearest Renault dealership in my European dealer book, we made our way to them. The building proved to be a wooden shed halfway up an Alpine pass. My Italian is non exis-tent, but on showing the parts' man the faulty part he disappeared into the shed and just a few minutes later reappeared with the correct replacement part. After fitting this no further problems were encountered. Over the years R1152-600-36561 to give DUK its manufacturing number, has tackled many of the highest and most difficult of Alpine passes, probably the most famous being the Stelvio with around fifty hairpin bends on either side of the summit. However, the scariest two, were the Gavia very rough and un-guarded and the Timmelsjoch also un-guarded and icy !

with aircon and the difference in tem-perature between the inside of the car and the outside was the greatest I have ever experienced. Florence is positioned in a bowl and can get very hot indeed. However Italy was not the farthest afield DUK ventured. In 1978 a journey of 3,400 miles was undertaken to what was then Yugoslavia, travelling through France, Germany, Austria and Italy. Yugoslavia was, at this time, communist and very poor, the hotel was rather run down, food basic, roads rough [no prob-lem for a R16] and petrol sold only by the communist state petrol stations. It was branded PETROL: no ESSO, Shell, BP, Total etc only PETROL! During this long drive on an Alpine pass the car started to overheat. I diagnosed that the thermal switch in the radiator which controls the electric fan had

27

The Long Distance Runner

vert the car to the electric sunroof op-tion, so I travelled to a farm in Suffolk where I purchased a roof cut off a scrap 16 TS. Fitting this was a massive job involving unpicking a large number of spot welds to free the donor roof panel from its frame, and repeating the same operation on my 16, which ensured that the roof pillars and frame of DUK were not disturbed. Over a period of about two years much work was done and in 1985 DUK took to the road once again complete with a brand new engine from Renault, still untouched to this day, fully repaired chassis and of course new MOT. Now the R16 was no longer my every day driver and entered its classic / col-lection era, but was still in frequent use. Cars don't like not being used. Mike Stokes of Marlow Motors and R16 resto-ration supremo used to say cars wear out in use, but deteriorate more with lack of use. During the 90s DUK was used once again for some memorable holidays including one to Norway sailing from Newcastle to Bergen on this now sadly closed route. Norway must be one of the finest places in Europe to drive

28

At the end of 1981 DUK now eleven years old failed its MOT. Like most 16s of this age it was suffering from quite advanced bodyshell corrosion, and was in economic terms not worth repairing. A one way trip to Charlie Perkins or Frank Beales the two nearest scrap yards seemed imminent, but a friend of my wife's offered me storage space off the public highway in a tumble down barn and the 16 was duly driven there, where it was to languish for around two to three years. In 1984 I suddenly de-veloped an interest in the car again and decided to restore it, helped by the fact that Renault, at the time, were selling brand new engines complete with all the ancillaries for a very reasonable price. Not having any previous experience in restoration or welding, I moved DUK from the barn to my domestic garage and began to strip it down. One huge advantage I had was that in the mid 80s virtually all panels could be bought new, including the chassis rails, and prices were amazingly reasonable. A spot welding gun was purchased as was an arc welder with a brazing attachment and work began. I also wanted to con-

Richard Allen

very considerable bill, which, to keep the car alive, was money well spent. At the same time he fitted a type 385 five speed gearbox which I had acquired some years earlier. This transformed the car making cruising much quieter and more relaxed, not to mention more eco-nomical. Shortly after completion of this work both Mick with his partner Maureen in their R16 TS and myself in DUK set off for Benoit Diringer's 4th European R16 Rally in Alsace, France and then onto Switzerland for a short holiday in Wilderswil near Interlaken. Another two thousand plus mile journey completed without trouble. However, shortly after my return a brand new driveshaft which had been fitted as part of the gearbox upgrade failed, just a few hundred me-tres from Mike's workshop. What looked to be perfect welding had failed, leaving the car stranded on a busy roundabout just off the A14 - a good thing it didn't happen in the mountains of Alsace or Switzerland! In 2013 I decided to repaint the car as it was a patchwork of different paint ap-plied during repairs over many years. Before repainting, various panels were 29

with magnificent scenery, extremely low traffic densities and total lack of aggres-sive driving, the only down side being high costs especially of alcohol and pet-rol. Another journey made with Joy's college friend and her husband, Janet and Colin Marshall, was the 2,400 mile trip to Cannes on the French Cote d'A-zur. When I took the car to Menton near the Italian border, it was here that I photographed DUK in the same setting as was used for some of the original press pictures during the R16 launch in January 1965. The years pass and in 2010 DUK had deteriorated once again and was in a very poor condition, another restoration was urgently needed, this 2nd restora-tion was put into the hands of Mick Stokes of Marlow Motors Kettering. As some of you will know, Mick is without doubt the most skilled and knowledge-able person in the UK when it comes to 16 restoration, being responsible for the survival of at least 75% of all R16s left in the UK. DUK was pretty bad and chal-lenged even Mick, but he rose to the challenge and returned the car in a solid sound condition, presenting me with a

The Long Distance Runner the highpoint was taking the car, which I have owned for 40 years, back not only to the factory but the actual as-sembly hall where it was first built 45 years previously. Then driving round for several laps of the test track with some of the present day work force watching. Marvellous! Already in 2015 my R16 has covered nearly 3,000 miles over all types of roads, in all types of weather coping with traffic conditions which were uni-maginable fifty years ago, proving I be-lieve that the Renault R16 was with out doubt one of the most innovative and influential cars of the post war period. Its influence can readily be seen in many of the cars of the 21st century. Built to carry you and your passengers over all roads in all weathers in perfect comfort and safety was a line from an early brochure. It was true in 1965 and it is still true in 2015. DUK itself is now in fine fettle and ready for many more years of comfortable and reliable motor-ing, who knows it may well outlast me!

either replaced N/S front wing, or re-paired two doors and the bonnet. This work was very skilfully carried out by Mark Verne of Saltfleetby near Louth in Lincolnshire, before refinishing with modern paint by Proline at Earls Barton near Northampton. This brings the story of this remarkable survivor, now with almost 270,000 miles on the clock up to September 2015. Almost 45 years since R1152 36561 rolled off assembly line number 1 at the Usine de Sandouville, near Le Havre in Normandy, on the 22nd of October 1970. There are two 50th anniversary celebra-tion events which the car and its owners have attended. The first one in France during May and the second in Yorkshire in August. Both of these were im-mensely enjoyable, however, for me,

30

The History Of Project 115 Part One P roject 115, the brainchild of Renault CEO Pierre Dreyfus [not a car man but a French civil servant] was born in the late 50s out of the failure of project 114. Project 114 was a car destined to re-place the not especially successful Fregate in the middle to upper market. It was to be a conventional 3 box design: engine, cabin and boot with a 6 cylinder engine driving the rear wheels and, I believe, a form of fluid suspension, the prototype still exists in the Renault Heritage Collection. Dreyfus however had other ideas. Although most definitely not a car designer he saw the future needs of middle market custom-ers in the 1970s. Young professionals with families, people with small businesses, travelling representatives etc. who needed a vehicle which would double as a car and a van with the virtues of both and the vices of neither. Renault already had a successful utility vehicle in the R4, but the new model would be much larger, more refined, so-phisticated and stylish and would incorpo-rate as much of the most modern technol-ogy as possible, consistent with an afford-able selling price. Project 114 was duly cancelled, both on the grounds of high manufacturing costs and Dreyfus's insistence on this ‘entirely new breed of car’. One advertising slogan that really did mean what it said and project 115 commenced. Of course, dual purpose cars had been around for years, but they had always been very low volume adapta-tions of existing saloons. The new Renault would have the dual purpose concept at its core, there would be no other versions, just what we now call the hatchback though of course this term had not yet been invented. This was to be a massive gamble by Dreyfus, an entirely new design with absolutely nothing carried over from previous models, a colossal amount of new technology both in the body and the me-chanical engineering. A brand new factory and new workforce was required to build the car, the huge investment necessary made the project an enormous gamble

indeed for Renault. The chief engineer, Yves George, was the man in charge of the mission, his team consisted of Gaston Juchet the young de-signer/stylist who was responsible for the shape that still seems adventurous and unique over 50 years later. Claude Prost-Dame was in charge of body structural en-gineering, Jacques Blondeleau suspensions, Michel Petricenko engine and also involved was famous independent French industrial designer Philppe Charbonneaux. Work, which began in the autumn of 1959, proceeded well and by 1964 the first proto-types were up and running, the very first picture ever published of the new car ap-peared in the Automobile Magazine issue 221 dated September 1964. While the ba-sic shape had been finalised many details had still to be completed. The magazine billed the car as La Nouvelle Renault 1500 for at this point no name had been decided on. This picture was the first public sighting of the model which was to become both immensely successful and influential to the great benefit of Renault's image and for-tunes. Whilst all aspects of the car's engineering were to be cutting edge, the body shell was especially problematic to the engineers. With no bulkhead behind the rear seats and with a large opening in the back, the rigidity of the shell would be severely com-promised, so a number of design innova-tions were introduced. Seventeen world patents would be made in the process. Deep main chassis rails pressed from 1.6 mm steel would form the basis of the car, together with side panels pressed in one piece and double skinned, which would greatly contribute to the car's strength. All this would be further aided by deep fully box sectioned cant rails [the outer frame of the roof] this made for a really strong rigid structure contributing to a strong, safe and refined car. Another aspect of the body work development was the large amount of wind tunnel testing undertaken to both 31

The History of Project 115 Richard Allen

reduce aerodynamic drag, in the interests of fuel economy, and the pursuit of low levels of wind noise. The designers wanted a car with very low levels of noise, in order to make long distance travel both comfort-able, and, by reducing fatigue, safer. The R16 would also benefit in the area of safety by being the first Renault to undergo scien-tific crash testing, and also the first to have 3 point seat belt anchorages from day one. R16 engine technology was also to intro-duce a world first in that it would be the first front wheel drive car to have the en-tire engine and transmission unit manufac-tured by high pressure die-casting in alu-minium, chosen for low weight and high thermodynamic efficiency. This was to cause many problems, which were not fully overcome when production commenced and many early cars suffered from over-heating and coolant loss due to porous cyl-inder blocks! Such is the price of progress.

On January the 4th 1965 the car was launched, earlier than was wished by the company, this was bought about by the scoop pictures published in the L’Automo-bile magazine. The motoring press was taken down to the Cote d’Azur for the launch at Juan Les Pin and the assembled journalists drove the car not only along the coastal roads, but also up into the snow covered roads of the Alps Maritime. The early cars found much favour with the press, but there was criticism of a number of aspects of the design most of which would receive attention in the months be-fore the public launch at the Geneva Motor Show in April. During this intervening time 200 cars were lent out to key customers, to test and comment on, so that further improvements could be incorporated. Drey-fus was determined that the car would be the success he wanted .... To be continued. 32

My 16 Philip Martin

12

I am the very lucky owner of this 1968 16TS, reputed to be the oldest TS in the UK. It was restored by Simon Pocklington from whom I obtained it. It has since been resprayed and together with new carpets, bonnet, tailgate and window rubbers it now looks quite delightful. I don't see why it shouldn't last for an-other fifty years. This car is well known within the club as Gary Creighton and Mick Stokes are some, amongst others, of the people who have owned it at vari-ous times. Talking of owners, I have a very long letter from Ruth Dinsmore whose father owned it from new, before her, detailing the life it led, so I have a very personal history of the car for the first thirty seven years of its life. An R16 TS just like this one was my first new car, bought in 1972 when I lived in Malta. I should never have sold it, but

hindsight is a wonderful thing. So I'm glad I now have this one, not only to relive my past, but to experience the current day pleasure of driving it on modern roads which it does so well. With a 5 speed box and power steering it would be even better, but how far do you stray from original-ity? Electronic ignition is as far as I have gone so far. Having had experience of holidays in France and knowing how bad the roads were then, and how well Renault 16s coped with them, it was the obvious choice when I saw that Maltese roads were even worse. As the editor of Clas-sic Cars noted this month after driving a TX, the suspension reminded him of a DS, praise indeed!

Someone, I can't remember who, sug-gested that the R16 started the hatchback trend, and I was inclined to believe them until I read about, and saw a picture of, a 1937 Citroen Commer-ciale, which was probably the first. Ap-parently Renault advertised the 16 as being just the job for independent minded owners who wanted the looks of a saloon with the luggage space and f l e x i b i l i t y o f a n e s t a t e . This car will be appearing in the Classic and Sportscar feature later this year, as well as at the NEC in November. There aren't many of these left, so we need to look after them very carefully. 33

Wheeler's Workshop

amounts of gear oil in the bell housing and on the clutch, a perfect cause of juddering clutch issues, then I found that the pilot bush in the crankshaft was badly worn away, allowing the first mo-tion shaft to flop around which caused early failure of the oil seal in the bell housing allowing the oil to leak out. So that explained the juddering, the box was then taken down and all parts washed and inspected carefully, I changed the primary lay shaft bearings just in case, but generally all was well. A set of new oil seals and a new pilot bush were ordered which were duly fitted when the reassembly commenced. I changed the clutch shaft as well, to a borrowed item from Phil Gardner's A110 330 box, and fitted a “Speedy Sleeve”

South African built R8 Gordini 1135 The competition year has seemingly passed quickly, with the Etretat annual bash for the band of UK competitors looming rapidly on 28th August, then Rally Day at Castle Combe and the FDMC Sprint Royale. After the May, Prescott La Vie en Blue Hillclimb issues I had with severe tramp-ing off the start line, I decided to pull out the engine and box to investigate the internals of the box itself as it had done four seasons of competition with-out any servicing/inspection and also to do a few small jobs on the engine while it was out. The first thing I noticed was the copious 34

Etretat town hall scrutineering - Saturday

Dave Wheeler kit to it which is a thin walled stainless tube which gives a groove free surface for the new oil seal to run against. I contacted Helix regarding the clutch oil contamination and followed their advice by washing all components with Hexane based Wynn’s brake cleaning fluid. The paddle friction surfaces being four pucks of mainly sintered brass were soon oil free and I decided to try running with it as time was running away for using He-lix’s re-tipping service of the plate by return post. While the rear end was stripped out I instigated phase two of the rear axle improvements by removing the R8G 4 shocker cross member and installing the lighter reinforced Dauphine single damper system cross member which is some 8lbs lighter, and saves a further 5lbs on the discarded pair of shockers and an estimated 5 lbs over the Gordini swing axle additional brackets, giving a total of 18lbs or 8.16Kg which is about the same as the weight saving of the steel bonnet change to the fibre glass item. I checked over the rear VW brakes con-version while the R10 swing axles were on the bench, all is fine and looking good, the big U/Js were also treated to a service with new Hardy Spicer joints being fitted just in case. The Rear Gordini radiator, fan, expan-sion tank, oil cooler and steel panel en-semble weigh some 33lbs, 15kg dry, which I was hoping to not reinstate as the front radiator kit is still waiting in the wings to be fitted. This is only 10 lbs lighter including the oil cooler/2 fans and copper pipe work but its weight is redistributed along the underside and to the front of the car. This allows the re-

moval of the rear fuel tank [estimated 10lbs dry] and 4 lbs for the cover plate as well. I have also removed the redun-dant rubber servo pipeline which saves a surprising 3.3 lbs. but gives more space for the future coolant pipe work installation. The battery cable [not weighed] is now inside the car in mod-ern lighter cable, freeing up more room underneath. As time was becoming tight I decided to leave the heavy rear radiator system in place to allow for some road testing time of the now oil free clutch, but I did fix an annoying problem with the oper-ating cable dragging on the speed humps wearing away the plastic sheath-ing allowing water ingress and sticking. I shortened the overall length by 50mm by stripping carefully 40mm of outer spiral casing and wrapping all the re-mainder with self amalgamating tape and also dripping oil into the inner wire. I then sawed off the pedal end fork, and tapped a thread on the rod so adjust-ment at that end could be carried out as well to loose the inner wire slack, I swapped the clutch pedal as well for a re-bushed item as the clevis pin boss area was worn. The cable is now only slightly drooping under the box and is silky smooth in its operation. The engine was cleaned and in doing so I changed the original African cast 102mm dia crank pulley back to the standard R8 132mm dia steel item, to increase the alternator revs at idle in anticipation of compensating for the loading of 2 x R16 front radiator cooling fans when I eventually fit them. The grooved R8 pulley was also treated to a “Speedy Sleeve” to provide a good groove surface for the new oil seal. 35

Models David Austin Wheeler's Workshop

A new water pump was fitted being the now available “Gros Debit” improved impeller design giving more flow. A qui-eter silencer was fitted during the reas-sembly so as not to annoy the neighbours too much. The car's weight saving/redistribution process spread over two years is reach-ing the end now and my estimated tar-get of 243.97lbs or 110.166kg [17.42 stones] has not quite been reached as I have still retained items such as the car-pets and under felt and the rear petrol tank and water radiator etc. but I am currently up to 223.95lbs 101.58Kg [15.99 stones] all weighed on the bath-room scales. I will in due course publish my progress chart of all individual lightened item weights recorded from door handles to suspension cross members to drilled hinges. These final weight saving targets throw up issues with the car being driven to events and not trailered as was the case last weekend when I drove 538 miles to Etretat and back via Newhaven Dieppe, so fuel carrying capacity is to become an issue and losing the rear eight gallon rear tank will be a blow. 36

The French event itself was full of sur-prises, and not so good weather moving in on the Sunday, compounded by the organisers' electronic timing issues on Saturday's practice / 1st timed run be-ing delayed by a severed communica-tions cable. As early evening was now upon us we eventually made it up to the start line but as Duncan Richardson, who was be-hind me in the Alfa said, "you couldn’t have written it any better" the heavens opened with a short heavy deluge mak-ing the ascent a suck it and see, grip wise. The next day [Sunday] we had fog in the morning with an overcast sky for our final two afternoon runs as the moderns were active in the morning. My times were generally two seconds slower than last year, while others im-proved. The surprise of the event was Christopher Williams in the 4CV Proto finishing second to Bob Gibson with a tremendous drive. Pat Bridger sadly suc-cumbed to big end bearing failure during the previous day's practice. The sky became more threatening as we rushed to pack away our kit ready for

Tim Jeffrey and Bob Gibson Sunday Morning at Parc Ferme in the Fog

Dave Wheeler

loss of idle and a stuttering misfire at about 7500rpm. I have since checked the cylinder compressions at home and it's the head gas-ket issue returning but I drove it home without oil /water mixing and coolant pressurisation as the 2 cylinders are “blowing” into each other which is thanks to the R5 GT Turbo kevlar head gasket Siamese fire ring design allowing this. It's now head off time, again!

prize giving in the marquee. Just as we finished, a terrible thunder storm was all around us resulting in the Parc Ferme field being under water and the local tractor being busy extricating bogged down cars and trailers. Michel Deldon’s house was flooded as well that evening. My Engine went off song on the last two Sun-day runs, which started earlier with a sudden

Parc Ferme on the Friday afternoon in good weather.

Vera Patten and Pat Bridger size up the menu on Saturday evening at Yvetot sur Mere.

37

R4 Registrar info@renospeed.co.uk

us were under the large tent quaffing rosé or beer, whilst watching the band doing renditions of British punk such as London Calling by The Clash and even more bizarre, God Save the Queen by the Sex Pistols. As you can imagine I can not really add much more to this! We love this event and hopefully the organisers will be able to keep it going in the future. We used the cream Gordini powered R4 and it was ready just in the nick of time due to me fitting a programmable igni-tion system which at first would not play ball. It is a long story, but in brief, after mak-ing and fitting the heated sandwich plate to heat the manifolds, the car ran much better and no longer iced up, but then it was pinking. I reset the ignition timing to the factory setting and it kept stall-ing. If I adjusted the idle speed a frac-tion it would race at over 1500 rpm, back it off and it would stall. I realised

T he French meeting in Thenay was great fun, with a number of Brits turning up, many of them travel-ling a serious distance before even get-ting onto French soil. Our regular B & B that is a stone’s throw away from the event is becoming equally popular too, with Stuart and David and their partners staying there also. The weather on the way down was 38 degrees (Thursday) but on the Saturday in typical style we had a thunder storm! This was not really a problem as most of

38

Derek Flavell

by one of the unit’s designers who was also desperate to find this obscure fault. It turned out to be a problem with Win-dows 8, which my laptop runs on. We borrowed an older laptop from Becky’s work running on XP and the system worked fine. I rebooked the rolling road session two days before we were due to leave for France and after setting it up I am over the moon with the engine’s us-ability. It starts much more easily and runs well at whatever rpm range you are in. To give an example, the original set up 10 years ago, had twin 45 DCOES and 4 speed gearbox, it was always freezing up and at speeds below 70mph it really needed to be in third gear to run smoothly. Now it has twin 40s, and a 5 speed gearbox and will cruise at 50mph in top gear without complaining. We used two tanks of fuel the last time we drove to Thenay in the car with the old set-up, this time we used 1 ¼ tanks and were four up this time too. The car has a small increase in power overall. But the big difference is that the 5 speed gearbox and the programmable ignition together as a package make for a really usable car!

that it needed more advance at low en-gine speed, but less at higher revs. This can only be properly done with an elec-tronic system. The distributor advance weights have to be locked solid and in my case (twin 40 DCOES), I needed a throttle position sensor. Fitting the sen-sor was a nightmare as the stupid de-sign of the manifolds means that they are so close together that the linkages have to be mounted on the outer ends, with the two centre shafts cut off! The throttle sensor also needs to be mounted on the outside shaft which meant completely remaking the brack-ets etc. allowing the throttle arm to pass through the middle of it all. After doing all this, and rewiring the car as required, it started up straight away on the fac-tory set map. I booked into my local rolling road with my laptop and the soft-ware required only to find that as soon as any info was added the system went AWOL and figures of 255° advance came up. We came to the conclusion that it was faulty. After contacting the supplier we found that some other units had experi-enced this unknown problem, but they were convinced that it was a software issue. Time was running out for our French trip, and after several attempts and emails back and forth, I was visited 39

R4 Registrar info@renospeed.co.uk R12 Estate I had noticed on hot days that the electric radiator fan was working overtime, the engine was getting up to working temperature, but then strug-gling to shed the heat, the fan would cut in and even once out on the open road it was slow to bring the temperature gauge back down to the normal middle position. This was made worse by the regular crawling through London’s traffic and over speed bumps. I had the radia-tor re-cored when I built the car, using some modified, from standard, R12 tanks and a copper core. On closer inspection it turned out that the radiator core was crumbling to dust between the rows of cooling pipes. There had never been any leaks from this ra-diator before, but the quality of the core’s material was obviously poor. It is a much more expensive route to have a custom made aluminium version, so I decided to have the original one re-cored again. This was done and all is now working fine again, with the tem-perature gauge back in its normal posi-tion. Mileage to date 53,000. Orange R12 Once again I am running short of time to get the article ready for La Renault so hopefully the pictures will give a good idea of what is going on with the car. The TS seat frames were in a terrible state and took a major effort to repair all the broken springs and fixings. I used some old spokes from a bicycle wheel as these are sprung steel and worked really well. After I painted the whole lot with anti-rust resin, I have given them to my trusted trimmer to work his magic. A full report in the next issue.

40

And Now For Something A Little Different ...

T wo somewhat different 16s. Above we have a two door saloon version which never saw the light of day beyond this prototype, snapped on the Renault stand at this year's Retromobile in February. The red convertible belongs to club member Wim Boer from The Netherlands who brought the car over here for the Yorkshire event.

41

4CV Registrar Robin Redrup

P eter Baker has decided to sell his 4CV that he bought from Richard Lewin. It was on eBay at the time of writing, so if you are interested, con-tact me and I will see if it is still for sale. Jody Scheckter’s son was looking for a 4CV so I have let him know as well. Welcome to Bob Humphries who has bought a 1956 4CV from France. I met Bob at the wet Knebworth Classic Car Show on bank holiday Monday. He was partly there to receive a front wing from Gary which was in ready to bolt on con-dition! Just a point about body panels for the older classic Renaults, Auto Panels of Castleford do not exist anymore! They do have a fabulous website but this has not been shutdown. I had been looking for a pair of front wings for a R18 with-out success but thanks to Wim Boer a pair is on its way from the Netherlands! Thanks Wim. I am ashamed to say that I have not had the CA VA SEUL 750 “van” out this year! I have been using my 1993 R5 instead mainly because of the distances of certain events. One event was the R16 50th Anniversary run up to the York-

shire Dales organised by Tony Cansfield. There were 10 R16s and my R5. We had a fantastic weekend visiting The Fred Dibnah Heritage Centre, the Wensley-dale cheese factory and the Ribblehead Viaduct.

While on our R16 travels in France, we stopped at a Renault Dealer for a coffee and this was the sole 4CV seen through-out the trip! We joined in with 65 other R16s to mark the 50th Anniversary of the model.

Fred Dibner’s righthand man, Alf, who gave some very interesting and hu-morous talks. 42

And Finally ...

These things take some time to plan so I would like to know if club members would be interested in such an event. If so, please contact me on 01507 327784 or you can send me an email at: ggcton@gmail.com Gary Creighton PS: Don't forget the NEC & the AGM! 43

W ell, if you've got here and you're still reading you're a real star! I hope that those of you who may not, perhaps, be as enthusiastic about the 16 as some, have enjoyed this special edi-tion as much as those who are. We do, however, have a special treat for you on the last four pages. Yes, I am afraid that it is more rambling from me! Our intermittent series, "My Other Car Is ..." features my 125S. Unfortunately, there are so few left that there doesn't seem to be any club or support for it. Having said that, parts are available from Italy and the iconic twin cam en-gine has proved relatively easy to obtain spares for. If you have a classic which is not a Renault, perhaps you may like to send in something for this feature. This year to celebrate 50 years of the R16 the club attended an event in France organized by CAR Sandouville. We also put together a touring weekend for R16 owners in the Yorkshire Dales which took place in the summer. The format for our Yorkshire trip was two or three nights in a hotel either Friday/Sat/Sun or Friday/Saturday for those wish-ing to return to work on Monday. Tony Cansfield put together two days of tour-ing The Dales and visiting places of in-terest. Next year is the 70th anniversary of the 4CV and the 60th of the Dauphine. The question is, whether 4CV/Dauphine owners would like us to plan something similar. We would chose an area suitable for classic car driving and would then have to decide whether to use an hotel, camp site or a mixture.

Original artwork from the Autocar’s technical evaluation of the R16 in 1965 courtesy of John Waterhouse.

My Other Car Is ... A Fiat 125S

W ell, I think the Renault 16 has had enough coverage now, so let me tell you about my stun-ningly beautiful Fiat 125S which was, I suppose, a direct rival of the 16. Three years' ago we had a holiday on the island of Malta. Having five children, six cats, seven rabbits, a mad spotty dog and a very old reptile we tend not to all go away at the same time and so it was only a select party of Parkers leaving the devoted wife at home. As it turned out this was a very good decision!

Having never been to Malta before we really didn't know what to expect, but even in October there was plenty of sunshine and lots of dust. We were driving along one day and spotted a Fiat 125 in dark green at a petrol station. I reminisced (boring the offspring again) about my early cars. Having crunched my Renault 10 in the spring of 1973 I went though a succes-sion of Fiat 124s followed by a Polski Fiat 125p and a Lada 1500. Unfortu-nately, the Eastern European cars were-n't a patch on the original Italian ones and around 1980 I managed to locate an elderly 124 Special T with the beauti-ful revvy, twin cam engine. Sadly, the rust had already taken hold and it didn't last very long. (As I understand it, the Italians sold the technology to their cars and manufacturing rights in exchange for Russian steel. The steel was rusting long before it reached Turin and the rest is history). That was the end of my Fiat experiences for a long time. 44

Back to the holiday ... A few days later we were in a town, whose name I for-get, and there was a sign beside the road pointing to the Malta Motor Mu-seum, it appeared to be the ground floor and basement of a block of flats. We paid and went in. On the ground floor there were some reasonably inter-esting cars and it had a very pleasant atmosphere. We went down some stairs, round a corner ... and there she was. Well, it was love at first sight! Har-riet claims that my face went as white as the car with shock, which may well be true. A chat with the museum owner revealed that the 23,000 miles were genuine and it had belonged to a teacher who bought it new, kept it ga-raged, used it only at weekends to take his old mum out and never used it on the heavily salted roads during Malta's harsh winters. A deal was done for an exorbitant number of Maltese shillings and it was arranged that the car would be despatched in a container to the UK.

Now, I could write a book on my disap-pointments with my car purchases over the years and as was illustrated re-cently, I still haven't learnt! For the next ten days I worried about how it might get damaged and wouldn't arrive in the perfect condition I had seen it in ... or was it? At last, the transporter arrived, the car was given a shove to get it off and it refused to move. The brakes were all locked on! With a bit of persuasion we managed to get it on the drive, the

Fred Parker

45

My Other Car Is ..... A Fiat 125S transporter left, I turned the key and that beautiful twin cam engine burst into life. Three minutes later there was steam everywhere and it was quite obvi-ous that there was something seriously wrong. Sadly, it had sat with very nasty tap water corroding rapidly inside the engine for many years. A decent mixture of anti freeze would have avoided the problem entirely. What next. Some things I can do, others are way beyond me. By an amazing co-incidence I had been reading Auto Italia and they mentioned a guy by the name of Guy Croft who earns a living solely from these twin cam masterpieces. Off went an email. Back came the reply "not viable!" Hummmmmm ... "Why" ... "Cost" ... "How much?" ... "More than you can afford!" etc. It turns out, from conversations with other twin cam enthusiasts that this is a fairly typical response! To cut a very long story in half, he eventually agreed to rebuild the engine and it took him a year to do so. The care, precision and attention to detail was quite incredible. I can only imagine that he loves his en-gines as much as I love my cars and rabbits! (After wife and children, of course). The next stage was to get the rebuilt engine back in the car. A job I wasn't looking forward to as it had been a right pig to get it out. Guy emailed and asked what my plans were. When I showed some hesitation he said that he had two approved engine installers! The nearest one being Go Performance Cars in Surbi-ton run by Mario Grech-Xerri. And guess where his family came from ... Malta! Mario is totally charming. Benjamin and I went to see how he was getting on.

We drove down a suburban street with houses and no garages. Then Benjamin spotted a dead Ferrari, overgrown with weeds in a front garden. Yes - it was Go Performance Cars, although the Ferrari wasn't a particularly good example of Mario's work! We rang the doorbell and his wife answered. She took us past two enormous black Labradors, little piles of poo in the garden, towards a shed at the bottom. Not totally reassuring! The door opened ... it was like Dr Who opening the door of the Tardis! A beau-tiful, spotless workshop, glossy red painted floor, room for three or four cars, engines on stands in various states of assembly and there was Malti (my Fiat) up in the air on a four poster lift. I discovered that Mario moved into the house around thirty years ago, built his garage at the end of the garden and has been there ever since. He specialises in Italian cars and especially Ferraris. His knowledge is incredible and when he was younger he had 8 Gordinis and knows the 8s and 10s inside out. (He recently proved to be a real star in res-urrecting my 1980 Audi 100 bought off eBay unseen, having spent 10 years resting in a Dublin barn ... but that is a story for another time). All went smoothly. I had done the brakes myself before the car went to Mario and he checked it over thoroughly and dealt with anything that needed doing. An interesting fact: the gearboxes on these cars do not use a regular gearbox oil. Over the years he has worked on many Lancias, Fiats etc which use the twin cam engine and gearbox as in my car. He tells me that mine has the best change of any of those vehicles because 1246

Fred Parker

it is such low mileage and it has not been damaged by using the wrong oil. The correct oil is the same as used in some much older cars, a straight SAE 90. As the car was eventually finished in February of this year it was delivered back on a trailer and I had to wait until the roads had been washed clean in April before taking it for its MOT. It passed, first time, no problems at all. Inciden-tally, the plate on the car was one I res-cued from a Renault 10 1300 so that is as good an excuse as I need to have the car in a Renault mag! How it compares to the 16 for driving I do not know as I have never driven a 16. On the little country roads it feels a bit cumbersome and old fashioned, but point it to the motorway and off it goes, like a rocket. I forgot to mention that Guy Croft actually builds racing engines

and so it is now putting out a little more than its original, quoted BHP. 0 - 60 comes up in well under 10 seconds, top speed I have no idea (yet) but in 5th gear it cruises in almost silence apart from the wind noise around the old gut-ters and quarter lights. Its first trip was to Coventry and no, we did not come back on a transporter, instead I received a charming letter from the Police telling me that I had exceeded the speed limit and I was go-ing to be beaten over the head with a truncheon until I promised to go slower! I really wanted to take it to Rouen at the end of September but was booked for a hip transplant on the Friday of that weekend. I have now cancelled the op-eration and will go to Rouen instead! (Weather permitting - as if it goes out in the rain it may well dissolve). 47