As our regular readers will know, here at ViaRETRO we firmly believe that “any classic is better than no classic”. A classic doesn’t have to wear a badge depicting a prancing horse or charging bull, nor does it need to sport a leaping cat or three-pointed star on the bonnet.
A Ford Cortina or VW Golf – not necessarily a GT or GTi – is every bit as much a classic, even if it’s not as exotic, or as expensive. One of our favourite annual events – which will hopefully be held again this summer after being cancelled last year by you-all-know-what – is the Hagerty Festival of the Unexceptional, a celebration of the road warrior sales rep specials and family cars our parents used to drive – or in the case of those of us getting on a little in years – drove ourselves back in the day. God knows I’ve driven enough of them.
This week’s Prime Find is one of those cars, but despite its dazzling ordinariness, there is in fact something quite extraordinary about it… but we’ll come that.
Through the 1950’s, ‘60’s and early ‘70’s, Renault, while perhaps never as innovative as Citroen, nor with the middle-class cachet of Peugeot, made a series of interesting cars, such as the Floride/Caravelle, the Dauphine, the Renault 16 (one of my favourites), 15 and 17. Their attempts at larger cars were perhaps less successful – the 20 and 30 never really took it to the Germans and Brits that dominated the executive sector. Their Alpine sports coupés, on the other hand…
Some interesting Renaults.
The R18 replaced the R12, although the two were produced together for a couple of years. Introduced in 1978, the R18 initially came as a very conventional three-box saloon in TL, GTL, TS and GTS trim levels, the first two coming with a 1397cc, 63bhp engine, the latter pair had the more powerful 1647cc, 78bhp unit, driving the front wheels.
The Renault 18 was launched into an extremely competitive sector of the market, which in the UK included the likes of the Morris Marina, Vauxhall Cavalier, Ford Cortina and Chrysler Alpine and later in the R18’s decade-long run, the Sierra, Cavalier Mk2 and Austin Montego, and was initially quite a success, selling over 30,000 examples in the UK in 1980, but sales gradually declined thereafter.
The competition
Changes to the range were introduced within months, with the introduction of a base model and an estate variant. Diesel and Turbo models were to follow, as were special edition versions such as the American. In 1984 the range as a whole was given a facelift, but the R18 was already losing sales.
Nevertheless, over 2m units were produced in France alone, and as the R18 was Renault’s first “World Car”, with manufacturing located in thirteen countries including Chile, Mexico, Romania, Spain, Australia and Argentina among them, it’s fair to say that overall the model was a success for the French company. Sales in Europe ceased in 1989, but continued in some of these other countries until the mid-1990’s.
We will return, however, to the Estate, since that’s what our Prime Find is – a 1983 R18 GTL Estate, or Break, as it was known is some markets. While mechanically identical to the saloons, the Estate could seat five comfortably and its rear seats could fold down to create a capacious flat floor.
Our car, being a GTL, has a 5-speed box and comes with the 1647cc engine. It’s quite well equipped – over and above the TL, seats are an unmarked beige velour, there’s a quartz clock, front head restraints, remote controlled driver’s door mirror, and headlight wash/wipers. Its external paint finish is a pretty cool bronze metallic, and the car is in excellent all-round condition – which brings us to the extraordinary aspect of this Renault, for our Prime Find has covered just 360 miles from new. Yes, that’s three-hundred-and-sixty miles.
It appears that after being registered on August 1st 1983, the car was – for no known reason – put into storage a few months later on March 29th the following year, and didn’t come out again, making this Renault 18 GTL Estate effectively a new old car…or should that be an old new car? Either way, it makes it effectively unique among Renault 18’s , which are scarce enough in the UK (though almost certainly more plentiful in France); only 23 R18’s of all types remain on our roads here, with another 74 SORN. Of that 23, 3 are GTL’s, but the number of estates isn’t specified.
As it is still under 40 years old, this Renault still requires an MOT, which it has until December of this year, unsurprisingly with no advisories. So – while this exceptionally ordinary, anonymous even, Renault will never create a stir, it is very rare and with this mileage, almost certainly unique and an ideal contender for this year’s Hagerty Concours de l’Ordinaire.
It’s coming up for auction with CCA auctions on March 26th and has an estimate of £8 – 10,000, a very high price for any regular Renault 18, but for this one, maybe not?
As usual, we have borrowed a number of photographs from the auctioneer’s website, and you can see the full lot entry here. Also as usual, should this astonishingly low-mileage 18 appeal to you, and despite its apparently unused condition, we recommend an inspection before you raise your bidder’s paddle.
With our Saturday instalment of Prime Find of the Week, we’re offering our services to the classic car community, by passing on our favourite classic car for sale from the week that passed. This top-tip might help a first-time-buyer to own his first classic, or it could even be the perfect motivation for a multiple-classic-car-owner to expand his garage with something different. We’ll let us inspire by anything from a cheap project to a stunning concours exotic, and hope that you will do the same. Just remember – Any Classic is Better than No Classic! We obviously invite our readers to help prospective buyers with your views and maybe even experiences of any given model we feature. Further to that, if you stumble across a classic which you feel we ought to feature as Prime Find of the Week, then please send us a link to primefindoftheweek@viaretro.co.uk