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You are in... Forums > General > Heroes & villains > Forgotten cars of the last 35 years
Joined:
May 11
Posts: 24
Thotos says:
bertandnairobi said: Is that small rectangle on the door the ashtray? I do hope so. It´s very well placed.
Is that small rectangle on the door the ashtray? I do hope so. It´s very well placed.
------ End Quote ------
Yes that's the ashtray but a lot of people use it in their attempt to open the door from inside the car! As you can probably see in the door photo above, the top plastic moulding is very cleaverly shaped to form a pull handle at the top to pull the door closed and inside this gap between the plastic moulding and the door card which is covered by what looks and feels like carpet, is a tiny little lever that's used to open the door from the inside.
For some strange reason, Lancia felt the need to go more conventional with the series 2 Trevi and they fitted the doors with conventional armrests with pull handles and clearly visible catches to open the door (see photo below).
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Feb 09
Posts: 1795
seant says:
Not forgotten by me at least, since I never knew they existed but, apparently, VAZ in the Soviet Union (better known in the UK as Lada) fitted limited runs of various models with one, two and three rotor Wankel engines. If you want more information, I direct you to this site.
Feb 07
Posts: 4499
bertandnairobi says:
Why on earth would they have bothered to do that? Everyone knows the poor Russians can´t build anything very precisely. Their engineers are clever (look at how cunningly they disguised their Concorde clone with a moustache) but their lineworkers are not a happy or healthy bunch.
Mar 08
Posts: 4886
Batty says:
I didn't know that seant, thank you.
Has anyone seen any of these? Did you recognise it or did it pass surreptitiously into the fog and you weren't quite sure if you had seen it or not.
Renault Fluence.
Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha.
They sell these in Ireland along with saloon Astras (up until the new model which as far as I know goes unbooted). I thought it quite a nice looking car and as convincingly sized as a Laguna. I don´t know why you´d by a Laguna if the Megane saloon was there for a lot less. In Spain the Astra saloon is still on sale (with the old body front end).
Batty said: Has anyone seen any of these? Renault Fluence.
Has anyone seen any of these?
I agree with B&N. I first saw one of these passing me at speed on the Autoroute a couple of months ago, and thought it rather handsome in its modest way. I was probably more fascinated since I mistakenly assumed that it was the ZE electric version. Obviously not reading my Car front pages enough, it hadn't registered that this was based on an existing piston engined model. Pretty obvious really that they were hardly going to engineer a whole new body at this stage.
Posts: 568
Goatboy says:
bertandnairobi said: They sell these in Ireland along with saloon Astras (up until the new model which as far as I know goes unbooted). I thought it quite a nice looking car and as convincingly sized as a Laguna. I don´t know why you´d by a Laguna if the Megane saloon was there for a lot less. In Spain the Astra saloon is still on sale (with the old body front end).
Like bertandnairobi, I see a lot of these when I travel back to Ireland - I think Renault were doing very attractive deals at one point. They strike me as a kind of latter-day Renault 18. Blandly modern yet pleasing to the eye. I think they are based on the Megane, which probably doesn't auger terribly well for the ride comfort, but it's easy to see why the conservative Irish motorist would find one appealing.
Actually, considering the fact that they appear to utilise the centre section of the Megane, the front and rear ends are rather well integrated really. Not something you could say about a Laguna is it?
No, the Laguna is a rather sorry confection. The front wing says "CX" though. The feature line running through the door handles and over the rear wheel arch is curved awkwardly. The car is a real nothing-much effort. The last car, for all its faults, was a cohesive design. Somehow in their attempt to be more serious and conventionally beautiful Renault failed remarkably. It hasn´t been a strong seller, has it? The more car makers bang on about this time being different the more they seem likely to mess up. The last Laguna sold fairly well and this one, promising a thicker coating of "premium" with more filling of "quality" emerges to huge yawns. People don´t even talk about the Laguna. It´s not so much an also-ran as a "didn´t run very far at all" car. The omens are poor for the Mondeo which we hear is supposed to be even more premium and exciting than the last one. Erk.
Thanks chaps!
We get them down here, but I confess that I haven't seen one. One interesting cultural difference between us is that I rather prefer the saloon (or sedan as we call them) to the hatch in most cases (although not here). We Australians tend to follow the thought patterns of our American cousins in this respect. I like my luggage to be separate in the boot, rather than sharing the "living room" with the driver and passenger.
Aug 06
Posts: 2262
lokinen says:
There is no don't that the saloon or sedan derivative drives marginally better due to being structurally stiffer across the back of the car, but for us GTI/RS/VXR obsessed Brits, the hatch has always transformed into a performance car visually, far better than the sedan.. Anyone remember the VW Jetta GTi or the mk3 VW vento? Personally I was a very big fan of the Vento Vr6 but I was definitely amongst a very small minority.
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