Rusty But Trusty

It’s not clear how many Renault LeCars were sold in North America, and you don’t see many on the road, but it’s interesting to see the regularity with which they show up in online listing sites. While there is no available sales breakdown, Renault’s overall sales increased by a factor of six during the LeCar’s US run, so it must have had some impact. While it only had 58hp, the comfortable seats, torsion bar suspension, and long wheelbase did their thing to give the car a comfortable ride. No doubt this must have been frustrating for Renault’s US sales and marketing team – they were giving Americans the ride quality to which they were accustomed, along with the fuel economy they needed, and yet they failed to beat out the Japanese and Germans (nevermind the Americans’ own efforts). Anyhow, if you’re in the market for a smoooooth ride and great fuel economy, you’ll want to check out this 1982 Renault LeCar for sale in Ann Arbor, MI, with bidding at $1877, reserve not met and less than one day left to go.

Overall, this car looks to be in great shape, especially for a rustbelt car. It’s said to run great as well, having completed a drive from Indiana (its original place of sale) to Michigan without failure. The owner does concede that some bubbling is starting to appear in the front fenders, so you’ll want to make sure and poke around so you’re clear on how extensive it is. And while this final year car does give up some horsepower (down to 51hp), there is some hope the early-year bugs typical in any car will have been worked out on this one.

The car is said to have had new paint and an engine rebuild some years back. Since the kitschy LeCar graphics were never replaced, perhaps this is a chance to retrofit some European trim items and go for the home-market look. Silver works pretty well on this shape, although bright colors always look great on small cars. The engine compartment looks immaculate, and it’s interesting to see under the hood without the spare tire covering everything up.

The interior is similarly spotless, with only a split on the driver’s seat bolster marring the overall impression. Check out the vertical-mount radio (would a CD player even function in this orientation?) and vast bank of idiot lights in the gauge cluster. Who knows what random ergonomic idiosyncrasies are hidden here – horn switch on the column? Wiper controls on the center console? You also get a nice set of manuals thrown in. Everything is said to work on the interior, barring the speedometer and tachometer – with any luck, those are both cable-driven.

Although it feels like there have been more, this is the sixth LeCar to be featured here in the last few years – will it be the one for you?

Tags: cinq, Feature, french, hatch, hatchback, lecar, r5, renault

This entry was posted on November 22, 2013 at 12:45 pm and is filed under Feature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.