Posts Tagged ‘gordini’

Back in Black – Pair of Renault 17 Gordinis

August 9, 2011

While taking something of an unintentional hiatus from writing here, I stumbled across a pair of Renault 17s for sale. Knowing the significant amount of interest this car is still generating, I couldn’t let the listing pass without doing a quick writeup. Since it’s a black car and the pictures are tiny, it’s hard to judge much of anything, but the fact it exists and was driven as recently as a few weeks ago does say something about its condition. And worst case, you have a mangy, spider-infested parts car to show you how things should look… when a car is mangy and spider-infested. You can find them listed for only $850 – how could you go wrong?? – in Scottdale, PA.

1979 Renault 17 Gordini plus parts car

Kudos to the seller for having the balls to open up the hood – I was uncomfortable enough finding dead black widows and their sticky webs (hint: they don’t stick to blue surgeon’s gloves) under the hood in my former Lancia Beta. If he’s like me, he wore thick leather gardening gloves when he did it.

(more…)

Advertisement

1978 Renault R17 Gordini

October 13, 2009

Update, 10/13/09: Here it is again. Seller (flipper?) is trying to double his money to $3500, which has to be all the money for one of these. He offers more detail, including that it’s got 38,000 miles, a sliding sunroof, and fuel injection. It was apparently dry-stored in a heated garage, and comes with all records.

Update, 10/5/09: Here’s a 1972 R17 for only $750 in Minneapolis, and in pretty decent shape too. Check out the sweet sport striping just above the rockers.

1972 Renault 17

Here’s a car you don’t see every day, that might give my Lancia a run for its money in terms of rarity on a budget. The fact that Renault made (essentially) two versions of the same car, the 15 and the 17, under the same brand, is something you’ll probably only see a government-owned car company doing! Most in America have disappeared, and to be honest I can’t ever recall seeing one of these in person. Needless to say, that’s where some of the fascination lies for me – I suppose if I had one of these I could cover both sides of the annual French-Italian show in southern California.

This particular car is a 17 Gordini, listed on craigslist in St. Genevieve county, MO for $1800. It’s the top of the range with the 107hp (Euro power – I’m guessing less with smog controls) fuel-injected R1313 engine originally seen in the 16 TS, plus a 5-speed transmission. While this car is the last to carry the Gordini name, it’s not clear that he actually had anything to do with modifying the car. Most of the underneath of the car is shared with the more humble Renault 12.

1978 Renault R17 Gordini side

(more…)