I owned a GTA while stationed in Germany. Broke it in brand new on the autobahn. Made a trip from Herzogenaurach to Garmisch and back with basically my foot pressing the accelerator into the floorboard the entire way. She took it without any complaints. It wasn't a muscle car or a true sports car but it was a joy to drive once I got used to the extremely responsive steering.
I had a silver GTA in 94'. Block was acid dipped and shaved, port & polished intake and exhaust. tuned cam/engine mapped. Custom headers with straight pipe and cherry bomb, 124hp. 0-100kmh 4.3sec /4.9sec. Top speed was around 260-270kmh. could take right angled corners on city roads at 40km. It was a great car. Could beat factory 5.0 mustangs light to light but on the HWY they would go in to third and blast me. I always wanted to get a turbo from a R5 , i thought that would have been great!
I owned 5 Renault's, 3 were the GTA. The GTA's were a gas to drive. At the limit the rear would slide nicely.I beat many 4 cylinder car's with it. Part's were abundant and cheap, but they just never needed any.People who bad mouth them have no clue what they are talking about.The body was even galvanized.I would love to have a 4th GTA. With a Mazdaspeed 2.3 turbo with a bit of work under the hood!
+martin vaccaro I had countless Renaults as I was one of the few in the area that could work on them. I miss my black GTA. I did put a Nissan SR20 and the 5 speed into an Alliance, I got a totaled SE-R wound up having to section in pieces, custom make engine mounts, and solder and splice the nissan and renault wiring harnesses together (would have been way easier to just drop the drive train in a base sentra). Today there are more engine swap choices but also more competent chassis to swap, unfortunately time marches on. I was really into the Renaults back in the day, and they were good cars, largely misunderstood with the RENIX electronics, TBI Injection, and ever changing part suppliers Ducellier, Paris-Rhone (later Valeo) and then in the final years Bosch. The one thing that always amazed me is for a light car how thick the sheet metal was, they were almost impervious to door dings and minor dents. I search Craigslist often for another Renault and I haven't seen an Alliance/Encore, Fuego or Le Car for sale in years, who knows maybe I'll find a clean original example to tool around in one of these days.
@@banjo-boy-montreal126 Sorry, I'm curious about where you said "solder and splice the nissan and renault wiring harnesses together". What was your thought process for figuring out which wires to splice among the 2 harnesses ?
My dad use to have a like this and gave it to my mom. It was such a rare car being it was an 88 and he gave the car to my mom in 1998.I'm surprise it lasted as long it did.
GTA stood for “Grand Tourisme Alpine,” and is what they called their 4th generation rear-engine sports car in Europe. So the US arm went with GTA to pay homage to their sports car.
Loving that you guys are doing more oddball kinds of retro reviews. It's neat seeing reviews of cars that maybe didn't work out, or sell well rather then the standard cars we can see everywhere else.
Mike Toomer I was lucky enough to have a nice French man who specialized in only French cars. He had every part available from France. He had all those nice French cars that fetch big money nowadays. I doubt my Encore could fetch 50 bucks. It cost me 50 bucks to remove it from my property! lol
I got this new in 1987 when they first came out,it was between this or the Acura Integra, l was 20 years old, at the time, it was all white with gray interior, I paid 10,350, and had so much fun with this car
I had the hatchback version called the 1983 Encore. For its time, gas milage was decent, high 20s to low 30s. After a year, it became a money pit. It died on the highway, when the computer quit in1989.
I had one of these in red hardtop. It was a blast to drive and I surprised many other faster cars, because they thought they could win by halfassing it. I miss the fun I had with it.
I had one in college. It rode great but lost 5th gear and then started to kick out of 4th gear. I didn't have to worry long as one day it just overheated even though the temp gauge was normal. Motor was blown and she went to the scrapper
I had one. Got it used in '93. It actually was a fun car to drive, when it ran. A month after I got it, the timing belt broke. Between just starting to make payments on it, and having only a month before made the down payment, it sat for a while til I got the money together to have it repaired. I had decent luck with it for a while, but then broke one of the fwd cv joints, so it sat for a while again (did I mention that I'm not rich?). I kept it about 3 years (two years paying on it, and about a year saving for something else), and toward the end had it in a shop it seemed like every couple months. Extra fun because since it was a special edition alliance, no regular alliance parts interchanged, so every repair had the added time of ordering and waiting for parts. That also hindered my saving to replace it. Again fun and stylish when it ran, but if I could go back and advise myself on the buy, I wouldn't touch it.
My mom had an alliance... I used to be scared of it because it broke down so much, I thought it would blow up if I stayed in the garage too long with it.
We called that car RENAULT 9 in FRANCE - Except the Renault 9 was only available with 4 doors and no convertible was available - and the top range was the 1.7 litres atmo or the 1.4 turbo
It is the Renailt 9 in France, however when Renault merged with AMC they realized they needed an American view to be successful. So AMC's chief designer, the awesome Richard Teague (R.I.P. Mr. Teague) took the Renault 9 and created the Alliance, making it as American as it could be.
Having suffered through the ownership of a 1987 Renault Alliance with the 1.4 liter engine, I really wanted to "upgrade" to the GTA at the time. The actual design of these cars was very good. They were comfortable, handled nicely and were very fuel efficient. The problem was the bottom-of-the-barrel quality of assembly. A group of semi-intelligent monkeys could have screwed these cars together better than what passed off as workers at the Kenosha assembly plant. Abysmal quality is an understatement.
I always think of the James Bond movie, I think Roger Moore's final one as 007, where Bond is chasing a baddie on the French Riviera(who's on a glider) and commandeers a Renault 11(a hatchback Alliance called Encore stateside) and the car get cut in half during the chase, but since it's FWD, Bond continues his pursuit until he's able to board a touring vessel LOL
Yup, that was in A View to a Kill, Roger Moore's last outing as Bond. He was chasing Grace Jones character May Day. Aka Christopher Walken's (Max Zorin) henchwoman from the Eiffel Tower. It was a great chaise sequence. Though it makes you wonder if the image of a Renault splitting in half was the impression a french car maker would want the wold think of their cars.
@@IsoscelesKramer Than was a Renault 11. The Renault Fuego is a total different car. Although, I think in some countries the R11 was sold under the Fuego name.
It looks like a Chrysler K car and a Pontiac sunbird mixed together, maybe it's just me. I knew Renault was sold here, but I never knew of this vehicle. Interesting video.
I had a 1983 AMC Renault Alliance it was a beige 2 door and it was a very good car, they only made the the Alliance GTA for 2 years 1986 and 1987. 1987 was the last year for all Renault models here in the US. In 1988 AMC became Jeep Eagle and were part of Chrysler corporation
I've watched dozens of these reviews and enjoy them, but in every single one, John Davis refers to "han-dle-ing" with three syllables, instead of the two-syllable word he means, handling. It really grates!
Ex had a 'rregular' alliance. Have to say, it got incredible fuel economy (42 hwy) for a 1984, and the ride and handling were unbelievable for such a small car. I should have test-driven a GTA; as others here have noted, more than a passing resemblance to an E30...
A surprisingly handsome car, they should have brought it to europe like this! The Renault 11 never looked this good, and although quite modern, it was not a particulary exciting car over here in Europe. I bet the 11 Turbo was not as fast as this GTA.
This video brings back memories my buddy in the navy saw this video when it came out and used his bonus check to reup and bought a new AMC Renault by 1990 his car was dead. Meanwhile my 1985 Mustang gt served me well into the late 1990s.
those front seats are very similar to my 1989 Jeep Cherokee XJ man those are very comfortable seats, I´ve owned many more cars with electric adjustable seats and high tech you can imagine, but those old manual " cradle " adjustable seats are extremely better
+Marcus Damberger In French "Renault" could mean "It doesn't run!" AMC was behind them too if I remember.Never had one to experience it.My mom had a Peugeot POS!We got Fiat in this country now (Fix it again Tony).LMAO The 500L interestingly enough is built by Zastava motors in Serbia!The old Yugo factory!Maybe they are people who've had good experiences with these cars.Peace to you
"the one to watch" as they make a break for it out of America and later take over Nissan- and totally destroy an otherwise respectable Japanese automaker!
@@vincentnocera2521 Yep You said a mouthful there brother! Amen to that! I had a 93’ Infiniti G20 (Nissan Primera) back in the day. Tough as nails! Peace!
I had one of these in the 80's...purchased it new off the lot....also drove the VW GTI and prefered the GTA......sold it many years later and with many enjoyable miles on the clock...don't have anything negative to say about it ...quite the opposite.
GTA badge in the same letter style as the WV GTi. It even sounds almost the same when you pronounce it. It wasn t by a computer, it was an attempt to associate it with the original hot hatch.
Nickos1b Possibly, but don't forget at the same time they were building this Renault were also building the Alpine GTA - "Grand Tourisme Alpine" It's quite possible they used the same moniker to link it with their Porsche fighter.
A girl that I went to school with had a Renault LeCar with a manual transmission. She had a lot of trouble with the transmission. I remember that it had a part that commonly failed. She described the part as being made out of "tin".
My dad had a tan colored 2 door '84 (iirc?) alliance and my grandfather (his dad) for someone reason bought an '86 4-door one in silver. My dad's was a pretty reliable car that lasted until '90 or '91 when my parent's traded it on an Aerostar. By then my mom drove it while my father had an '88 Thunderbird. My grandfather's was a constant headache (i still remember it breaking down on him on vacation) until he got rid of it in favor an S-10 pickup in '92. The 2-door GTA actually looks pretty good. Something between a VW Jetta and a 3-series of that era.
I had some tires similar to those (Michelin TRX) on a set of used wheels on my E36. I think they came from an E24 5-series because I remember reading that they came as an option on the 5 series in the 80s. I didn't realize how stupid I was for buying that wheel/tire combo until I found out they don't make the TRX anymore. You have to order them through special companies that have the molds for them and are made-to-order and cost hundreds of dollars a piece.
I autocrossed my GTA in the early 90's. I blew away the rest of H Stock and did very well the cars of the day. I broke a motor mount when autocrossing and repaired it with large zipties and kept racing.
@@987WFGR These "partnerships" rarely work out. Renault has ruined Nissan now too. Chrysler wrecked Mitsubishi in America with the whole "DiamondStar Motors" nonsense. These low end car companies struggle to even stay alive in North America for good reasons.
I bought a "somewhat dented" GTA Coupe out of the junkyard for $150 and proceeded to drive the heck out of it. This was in the late 1990's, and up to that point, the best-handling FWD car I had ever owned. I still benchmark other FWD cars to that standard.
My first car was a renault alliance 4 door 1.7 liter . with 26000 miles on it, it was 1987 model .I had problems with that car right off the dealership parking lot. First it was the transmition which for me still under warranty . Then several months later the rear shocks went out and would cost 1000 to replace not under warranty .The ac stopped working ,it was found that it needed an a c compressor at a cost of 800 ,but i never got it fixed because it would bog the engine down so bad that it did not benefit me to get it fixed . A month later the car would not start .The garage that i took it to got it started ,but it quickly caught on fire and caused so much damage after the fire was put out ,it was decided to just junk the car .The car was a big money pit.Even to this day because of my experience with that car ,i refuse to purchase anything from chrysler even though it was an amc brand
Not bad for early post-Malaise, naturally aspirated, performance variant of an economy car. Still, I wonder if the Renault 9 on which this was based ended up having an even sportier take on this.
I wish Renault had brought more of their performance models to North America. I've long harbored a desire to own an R5 Gordini Turbo, but they never sold them here, just the plain 5, badged as the LeCar. I never even knew the Alliance GTA existed.
Here is a point of view from the other side of the ocean. From here your cars are overloaded with equpment we never heard of for decades. YOur cars in the 50's alfready has stuff we did not have in our own market produced cars such has all the vaccumed or electrical things (seat setting, windows, lock, etc.). At the time we export those car parts to the american soil, the ration betwwen the french Frnac and the US Dollars wasn't good for us though. That's why they thought that since they were selling at a higher price that they would have chosen, the cars should be fully equipped. The bumper have nothing to do with standard equipment or not. It's just your federal rules that imply cars to have a spring mounted bumlper that can handle low speed crash. The GTA has never been sold in France. I guess it stand for "Grand Tourisme America". Here we never had low priced gasoline, and even the 1.7 liter found in some Alience/encore wasn't available. Nowadays the gallon of premium is around $8-9. President trump can yell as much as he wants but our market are way different. Big sedans like Crown Vic will not sell here and never sold here anyway, and since you don't manufacture small cars, hey, that's not our fault ! lol.
We didn't want them either seeing how AMC went bust trying to sell these unreliable, boring cars. A Honda Civic from the same era was 10x the car that these were.
Rusty0869 I bet the Hyundai was more reliable and, at the very least, cheaper to own and maintain. For a high schooler, the Renault would have been a terrible choice.
Rusty0869 My dad was going to get this but purchased the Merc Lynx instead. I am happy he got that. best car ever. The GTA looks soooooo cool but....well you know.
I would have brought a Dodge Aries K instead more reliably and the K's were built always up until 1996. Dodge Spirit /Plymouth Acclaim were stretched K car
the engine is an " f " series engine ....so you can fit easy an f7p/r ( 1,8 16v 135 hp or 2liter 148 hp ) into the car the fuego turbo is a bit delicate ....it suffers from problems with the carb.
When was the last time you heard anyone use the term, "Pooped-out"? lol - As an American of Baby Boomer vintage, who lived through the years from the Muscle-Car era to the so called, "Energy Crisis"; that sent Detroit into a tailspin, I'd have to say that it was our bias against French engineering that caused the Alliance venture to fail. It was a mistake. We simply didn't think that the French could do anything except make bad copies of the superior German engineered automobiles. (but neither could "The Big Three") We had the very same problem with Italian cars, which is part of the reason Fiat and Vespa failed in the US market... Back in The Day.
I had a turbo Chevrolet Sprint. Much more reliable, and faster. Handled less well. Just sold it in 2010. I have seen like 10 or the GTA's and Sprint Turbos in my lifetime. Rare cars. I have owned a 92 VW GTI 16v since 2000. I will never sell it. best hot hatch ever avail in the USA
Renault's are not really bad cars. You have to religiously keep up on the maintenance on Renault's if you do that you can get lots of miles out of them if you beat on them they will not last. Every car made has weak and strong points about them. Renault's are prone to rusting some Renault's have weak starters and fuel pumps. But Renault's usually have good drive trains as-long as maintenance is kept up like oil coolant timing belt.
"You have to religiously keep up on the maintenance" - This seems to be a common theme with European cars and I think this is why the non luxury brands fail in the US. When Toyota and Honda could sell cars that were practically indestructible the idea of a car that requires a lot of preventive maintenance is a hard sell. Curiously, in the UK, it is my understanding that Hondas are "old geezer" cars, as mostly only oldsters over there appreciate that they don't require coddling to keep them running.
tytotheler92 Renault had a controlling interest in AMC for the better part of the 80s until their stake was sold to Chrysler in 1987. Chrysler took over AMC mainly to get its hand on Jeep.
After the sale of AMC to Chrysler, Renault quickly exited the U.S. market. I think they were looking for a way out at that point, as AMC became a money pit for Renault and the "Alliance" between the two was not turning out in favor of Renault. All French car makers were gone by the end of the 80's, it was much harder to break into the American market then they thought it would be. The Japanese got it right with reliable fuel efficient cars, and then grow their base from there. Hyandai, followed similar a decade later with cheap fuel efficient cars, albeit with somewhat plstaticky cheap interiors. But now their offerings are as good as any manufacture, with a wide range of vehicles. Maybe if the French had offered far more reliable vehicles at a good price they might have done better. However, their dealer network was limited to AMC and mechanics were just not familiar with their systems, especially the electrical systems.
the best french engineers go to the aeronautic / spatial sector in france. We have not a sucess with our cars but we have a big sucess with our airplanes / helicopters in the world + usa
Makes you wonder if the introduction to the Alliance which won "Motor Trends Car of the Year" in 1983 had waited until the GTA model instead was released in 1987 things could have turned out better for the AMC/ Renault merger which we all know failed miserably.
"We don't know what the moniker GTA stands for" Really, you have no idea? VW is selling GTI's faster than they can build them and this is based on the Renault A-lliance platform. And the font of GTA on all the cladding is the same as VW's. Wow 18 second quarter miles. Times have changed.
As much as I like Renaults, I still think they should have been sold as AMCs in the US. Could have made the difference in marketing and kept the company afloat.
My friend had one. She got it as a grad present. this was a pretty big deal where i came from. As the car was only 5 years old or thereabouts It caught on fire..Never forget it..Its a nice looking car..Did the Nissan Sentra later copy this design..?
I didn't read Luis's post as the fire being a problem. Rather, he was saying how cool the car was that it would spontaneously combust. That's a feature only seen in high end exotics!
Ah the Renault Grand Theft Auto
I owned a GTA while stationed in Germany. Broke it in brand new on the autobahn. Made a trip from Herzogenaurach to Garmisch and back with basically my foot pressing the accelerator into the floorboard the entire way. She took it without any complaints. It wasn't a muscle car or a true sports car but it was a joy to drive once I got used to the extremely responsive steering.
I wish the U.S. had an autobahn.
I had a silver GTA in 94'. Block was acid dipped and shaved, port & polished intake and exhaust. tuned cam/engine mapped. Custom headers with straight pipe and cherry bomb, 124hp. 0-100kmh 4.3sec /4.9sec. Top speed was around 260-270kmh. could take right angled corners on city roads at 40km. It was a great car. Could beat factory 5.0 mustangs light to light but on the HWY they would go in to third and blast me. I always wanted to get a turbo from a R5 , i thought that would have been great!
Nice 👌
Wow. This thing would only cost about $23,000 fully loaded today. Not bad at all.
I owned 5 Renault's, 3 were the GTA. The GTA's were a gas to drive. At the limit the rear would slide nicely.I beat many 4 cylinder car's with it. Part's were abundant and cheap, but they just never needed any.People who bad mouth them have no clue what they are talking about.The body was even galvanized.I would love to have a 4th GTA. With a Mazdaspeed 2.3 turbo with a bit of work under the hood!
+martin vaccaro I had countless Renaults as I was one of the few in the area that could work on them. I miss my black GTA. I did put a Nissan SR20 and the 5 speed into an Alliance, I got a totaled SE-R wound up having to section in pieces, custom make engine mounts, and solder and splice the nissan and renault wiring harnesses together (would have been way easier to just drop the drive train in a base sentra). Today there are more engine swap choices but also more competent chassis to swap, unfortunately time marches on.
I was really into the Renaults back in the day, and they were good cars, largely misunderstood with the RENIX electronics, TBI Injection, and ever changing part suppliers Ducellier, Paris-Rhone (later Valeo) and then in the final years Bosch. The one thing that always amazed me is for a light car how thick the sheet metal was, they were almost impervious to door dings and minor dents. I search Craigslist often for another Renault and I haven't seen an Alliance/Encore, Fuego or Le Car for sale in years, who knows maybe I'll find a clean original example to tool around in one of these days.
+Banjo-Boy-Montreal I would love to find another and a crashed Mazdaspeed engine to shoe horn in there!
The Renaut 5 GT Turbo engine require less work. Or buy a 5 GT Turbo. Or a Renault 11 Turbo (same car as the Alliance...)
@@banjo-boy-montreal126 Sorry, I'm curious about where you said "solder and splice the nissan and renault wiring harnesses together". What was your thought process for figuring out which wires to splice among the 2 harnesses ?
I had one, so fun to drive, geared low, dump the clutch and floor it but be ready to shift
My dad use to have a like this and gave it to my mom. It was such a rare car being it was an 88 and he gave the car to my mom in 1998.I'm surprise it lasted as long it did.
Very nice and beautiful the Renault GTA
For its era, I give this vehicle credit for its body paint-matched bumper covers.
Escort GT and Cavalier Z24 had them too. Not that special for the high end model.
GTA stood for “Grand Tourisme Alpine,” and is what they called their 4th generation rear-engine sports car in Europe. So the US arm went with GTA to pay homage to their sports car.
Loving that you guys are doing more oddball kinds of retro reviews. It's neat seeing reviews of cars that maybe didn't work out, or sell well rather then the standard cars we can see everywhere else.
Had an 85 renault encore new. Put over 300,000 on it and all I had to do was a clutch and a head gasket.
Mike Toomer I was lucky enough to have a nice French man who specialized in only French cars. He had every part available from France. He had all those nice French cars that fetch big money nowadays. I doubt my Encore could fetch 50 bucks. It cost me 50 bucks to remove it from my property! lol
That thing cornered amazing through that slalom! Super flat. What a handler. Yet to see one of these in Canada.
I got this new in 1987 when they first came out,it was between this or the Acura Integra, l was 20 years old, at the time, it was all white with gray interior, I paid 10,350, and had so much fun with this car
I had the hatchback version called the 1983 Encore. For its time, gas milage was decent, high 20s to low 30s. After a year, it became a money pit. It died on the highway, when the computer quit in1989.
I had one of these in red hardtop. It was a blast to drive and I surprised many other faster cars, because they thought they could win by halfassing it. I miss the fun I had with it.
I remember seeing these cars as a kid while me and my brother were visiting our grandparents ( may they rest in peace 😔) in Graciosa, Azores.
Renaults are magnificent! That steering wheel is just superb!
It came from the Renault 5 Alpine.
I know! I wish i had at least the captur or the clio here in indonesia with honda HRV and fit price....
And they are so hipster/hippie/indie and speakingly, rare (just as Nissan and Mitsubishi anyway) in my view... - ialociN
@ where is the joke?
I had one of these. Had to wiggle the wiring to get it going sometimes but it was a great little car lots of fun to drive.
Ive always liked the styling of the Alliance. Really plush inside too. Ride was smooth and economy was excellent.
I agree with you. It was a very clean design.
Its still seems like a more sophisticated style compared to the corollas n friends of the time
The SR5 hatch was nice for the time. The sedan, not so much
I beg to differ. My sister had a 5 speed sedan way back when and it was pretty sweet. So i thought anyhow
I had one in college. It rode great but lost 5th gear and then started to kick out of 4th gear. I didn't have to worry long as one day it just overheated even though the temp gauge was normal. Motor was blown and she went to the scrapper
The former amc hq (not the one in the background in this vid) on Plymouth Road in Detroit is probably about to be destroyed... Rest in peace, AMC
I had one. Got it used in '93. It actually was a fun car to drive, when it ran. A month after I got it, the timing belt broke. Between just starting to make payments on it, and having only a month before made the down payment, it sat for a while til I got the money together to have it repaired. I had decent luck with it for a while, but then broke one of the fwd cv joints, so it sat for a while again (did I mention that I'm not rich?).
I kept it about 3 years (two years paying on it, and about a year saving for something else), and toward the end had it in a shop it seemed like every couple months. Extra fun because since it was a special edition alliance, no regular alliance parts interchanged, so every repair had the added time of ordering and waiting for parts. That also hindered my saving to replace it.
Again fun and stylish when it ran, but if I could go back and advise myself on the buy, I wouldn't touch it.
Accusound by Jensen?! Wwwoooooww......
My mom had an alliance... I used to be scared of it because it broke down so much, I thought it would blow up if I stayed in the garage too long with it.
I heard the GTA's were an entirely different animal when it came to reliability.
I think this GTA is a pretty cool looking ride actually!
We called that car RENAULT 9 in FRANCE - Except the Renault 9 was only available with 4 doors and no convertible was available - and the top range was the 1.7 litres atmo or the 1.4 turbo
It is the Renailt 9 in France, however when Renault merged with AMC they realized they needed an American view to be successful. So AMC's chief designer, the awesome Richard Teague (R.I.P. Mr. Teague) took the Renault 9 and created the Alliance, making it as American as it could be.
That's nice.
I remember George C Scott doing the commercials for AMC/Renault
Beautiful car! I was 4 years old in 1992 when i saw a red GTA coupe. Imediately it became my favourite car!
Having suffered through the ownership of a 1987 Renault Alliance with the 1.4 liter engine, I really wanted to "upgrade" to the GTA at the time. The actual design of these cars was very good. They were comfortable, handled nicely and were very fuel efficient. The problem was the bottom-of-the-barrel quality of assembly. A group of semi-intelligent monkeys could have screwed these cars together better than what passed off as workers at the Kenosha assembly plant. Abysmal quality is an understatement.
And you were thinking of getting another slap in the face. "Thank you Sir may I have another"
I always think of the James Bond movie, I think Roger Moore's final one as 007, where Bond is chasing a baddie on the French Riviera(who's on a glider) and commandeers a Renault 11(a hatchback Alliance called Encore stateside) and the car get cut in half during the chase, but since it's FWD, Bond continues his pursuit until he's able to board a touring vessel LOL
Yup, that was in A View to a Kill, Roger Moore's last outing as Bond. He was chasing Grace Jones character May Day. Aka Christopher Walken's (Max Zorin) henchwoman from the Eiffel Tower. It was a great chaise sequence. Though it makes you wonder if the image of a Renault splitting in half was the impression a french car maker would want the wold think of their cars.
Love these obscure ones. Little cars lost to time
Motor Week once again showing me an interesting car that I never knew existed. Keep 'em coming!
Never seen James Bonds "A View To A Kill" ?
@@dorientjewoller113 That was a Fuego.
@@IsoscelesKramer Than was a Renault 11. The Renault Fuego is a total different car. Although, I think in some countries the R11 was sold under the Fuego name.
It looks like a Chrysler K car and a Pontiac sunbird mixed together, maybe it's just me. I knew Renault was sold here, but I never knew of this vehicle. Interesting video.
I would love to see more retro reviews for Renault models.
I had a 1983 AMC Renault Alliance it was a beige 2 door and it was a very good car, they only made the the Alliance GTA for 2 years 1986 and 1987. 1987 was the last year for all Renault models here in the US. In 1988 AMC became Jeep Eagle and were part of Chrysler corporation
I've watched dozens of these reviews and enjoy them, but in every single one, John Davis refers to "han-dle-ing" with three syllables, instead of the two-syllable word he means, handling. It really grates!
I'm wowed by this car, I wouldn't mind driving this today.
Ex had a 'rregular' alliance. Have to say, it got incredible fuel economy (42 hwy) for a 1984, and the ride and handling were unbelievable for such a small car. I should have test-driven a GTA; as others here have noted, more than a passing resemblance to an E30...
When MW showed the back seat, the upholstery reminded me of an early 80's Chevy Malibu interior!
A surprisingly handsome car, they should have brought it to europe like this! The Renault 11 never looked this good, and although quite modern, it was not a particulary exciting car over here in Europe. I bet the 11 Turbo was not as fast as this GTA.
Do you have a review on the Renault Fuego? I would LOVE to see it!!
misamisatv The commercials for the turbo were cool, I think!
+misamisatv I heard some stories on the Fuego,they did catch engine fire,lol
Jorge Bobe Yup! hence the name fuego! :P
Yes they did catch fire. Thankfully, most of them burned to the ground when they caught fire and were taken out of the gene pool.
A video on the Fuego Turbo was just released today
This video brings back memories my buddy in the navy saw this video when it came out and used his bonus check to reup and bought a new AMC Renault by 1990 his car was dead. Meanwhile my 1985 Mustang gt served me well into the late 1990s.
those front seats are very similar to my 1989 Jeep Cherokee XJ man those are very comfortable seats, I´ve owned many more cars with electric adjustable seats and high tech you can imagine, but those old manual " cradle " adjustable seats are extremely better
GTA stands for "we need a car to compete with the VW GTI so let's use the same font and color scheme for the emblem and change the last letter"
AH Well, they were pretty lucky that "A" was available. They couldn't use any of the other vowels because they were already taken.
Actually, that is probably an accurate French translation LOL
Okay, that's it, I'm making a car called the GTU
GTA was a reference to Renault’s Alpine rear-engine sports car, which wasn’t sold in the US. “Grand Tourisme Alpine,” specifically.
"The one to watch" As the Renault commercials quoted.
"The one to watch" as they quickly exit the U.S. market.
+Marcus Damberger In French "Renault" could mean "It doesn't run!" AMC was behind them too if I remember.Never had one to experience it.My mom had a Peugeot POS!We got Fiat in this country now (Fix it again Tony).LMAO The 500L interestingly enough is built by Zastava motors in Serbia!The old Yugo factory!Maybe they are people who've had good experiences with these cars.Peace to you
"the one to watch" as they make a break for it out of America and later take over Nissan- and totally destroy an otherwise respectable Japanese automaker!
@@vincentnocera2521 Yep You said a mouthful there brother! Amen to that! I had a 93’ Infiniti G20 (Nissan Primera) back in the day. Tough as nails! Peace!
I had one of these in the 80's...purchased it new off the lot....also drove the VW GTI and prefered the GTA......sold it many years later and with many enjoyable miles on the clock...don't have anything negative to say about it ...quite the opposite.
I love that intro.
I had a 85 Encore and great econo box! Ran 185,000 miles.
GTA badge in the same letter style as the WV GTi. It even sounds almost the same when you pronounce it. It wasn t by a computer, it was an attempt to associate it with the original hot hatch.
Nickos1b Possibly, but don't forget at the same time they were building this Renault were also building the Alpine GTA - "Grand Tourisme Alpine" It's quite possible they used the same moniker to link it with their Porsche fighter.
A girl that I went to school with had a Renault LeCar with a manual transmission. She had a lot of trouble with the transmission. I remember that it had a part that commonly failed. She described the part as being made out of "tin".
My dad had a tan colored 2 door '84 (iirc?) alliance and my grandfather (his dad) for someone reason bought an '86 4-door one in silver. My dad's was a pretty reliable car that lasted until '90 or '91 when my parent's traded it on an Aerostar. By then my mom drove it while my father had an '88 Thunderbird. My grandfather's was a constant headache (i still remember it breaking down on him on vacation) until he got rid of it in favor an S-10 pickup in '92. The 2-door GTA actually looks pretty good. Something between a VW Jetta and a 3-series of that era.
Nissan is basically Renault now.
For example the rouge is basically a Renault koleos
Very cool car! quite an affordable package!
Also sold as Renault 9 or 11 in Israel.We called it-the sedan version of Renault5(hatchback)
I had some tires similar to those (Michelin TRX) on a set of used wheels on my E36. I think they came from an E24 5-series because I remember reading that they came as an option on the 5 series in the 80s. I didn't realize how stupid I was for buying that wheel/tire combo until I found out they don't make the TRX anymore. You have to order them through special companies that have the molds for them and are made-to-order and cost hundreds of dollars a piece.
+joh n I don't follow? So you sold them? Can't you get modern tyres in the same size? Is it one of those oddball metric sizes!?
Yes, oddball metric. Its measured as 390mm and not the regular 205 65 R15
I miss the days when 10.3 sec 0-60MPH was "very respectable".
I autocrossed my GTA in the early 90's. I blew away the rest of H Stock and did very well the cars of the day. I broke a motor mount when autocrossing and repaired it with large zipties and kept racing.
Lol
Renault 11 turbo: 1.4 liter, 113 cv. Quarter mile 16 secs, 0-60 mph 8,5 secs, top speed 195 km\h. Same engine as the Renault 5 turbo.
Its hard to believe Renault lasted up to '87 😯
A French POS car built by AMC in Canada. What could go wrong? After AMC failed, I'm sure you could get parts for it at least until 1989 or 1990.
@@scdevon AMC didn't really fail. Renault was saddled with Politics and Debt. Chrysler bought out Renault Shares - and then the rest of the company.
@@987WFGR These "partnerships" rarely work out. Renault has ruined Nissan now too. Chrysler wrecked Mitsubishi in America with the whole "DiamondStar Motors" nonsense.
These low end car companies struggle to even stay alive in North America for good reasons.
@@scdevon Built in Kenosha, not Brampton.
I bought a "somewhat dented" GTA Coupe out of the junkyard for $150 and proceeded to drive the heck out of it. This was in the late 1990's, and up to that point, the best-handling FWD car I had ever owned. I still benchmark other FWD cars to that standard.
My first car was a renault alliance 4 door 1.7 liter . with 26000 miles on it, it was 1987 model .I had problems with that car right off the dealership parking lot. First it was the transmition which for me still under warranty . Then several months later the rear shocks went out and would cost 1000 to replace not under warranty .The ac stopped working ,it was found that it needed an a c compressor at a cost of 800 ,but i never got it fixed because it would bog the engine down so bad that it did not benefit me to get it fixed . A month later the car would not start .The garage that i took it to got it started ,but it quickly caught on fire and caused so much damage after the fire was put out ,it was decided to just junk the car .The car was a big money pit.Even to this day because of my experience with that car ,i refuse to purchase anything from chrysler even though it was an amc brand
+morefeouse ..That's a really detailed story. It's good to hear detailed stories of what happened.
This is why I will never buy a Renault/Nissan car today. Renault ruined nissans good reliability.
I would love to have a Renault 2017 model today ,but all the bad memories would ruin my experience of owning one again .
TruAgape1234 Here in Europe Renaults are really reliable if they don't have a Nissan engine in them.
Only company in the world worse than fiat
I rode in the back of one of those once and I am living to tell you about it.
those front seats actually look pretty good for a 1987 9k car...
Not bad for early post-Malaise, naturally aspirated, performance variant of an economy car. Still, I wonder if the Renault 9 on which this was based ended up having an even sportier take on this.
He said "poop". Tee Hee
I wish Renault had brought more of their performance models to North America. I've long harbored a desire to own an R5 Gordini Turbo, but they never sold them here, just the plain 5, badged as the LeCar. I never even knew the Alliance GTA existed.
You will never see one on the road in 2024! Unless you're at a car show! Just Rare!
Oh well,
Americans seem to love European cars, as long as they are top spec. This car seems to have equipment that wasn't even available in France!
Here is a point of view from the other side of the ocean. From here your cars are overloaded with equpment we never heard of for decades. YOur cars in the 50's alfready has stuff we did not have in our own market produced cars such has all the vaccumed or electrical things (seat setting, windows, lock, etc.). At the time we export those car parts to the american soil, the ration betwwen the french Frnac and the US Dollars wasn't good for us though. That's why they thought that since they were selling at a higher price that they would have chosen, the cars should be fully equipped.
The bumper have nothing to do with standard equipment or not. It's just your federal rules that imply cars to have a spring mounted bumlper that can handle low speed crash.
The GTA has never been sold in France. I guess it stand for "Grand Tourisme America". Here we never had low priced gasoline, and even the 1.7 liter found in some Alience/encore wasn't available. Nowadays the gallon of premium is around $8-9.
President trump can yell as much as he wants but our market are way different. Big sedans like Crown Vic will not sell here and never sold here anyway, and since you don't manufacture small cars, hey, that's not our fault ! lol.
We didn't want them either seeing how AMC went bust trying to sell these unreliable, boring cars. A Honda Civic from the same era was 10x the car that these were.
My uncle got one of these whe they came out. It was black like the one in this video. I loved that car.
Resembles the E30 to a small degree, actually after watching the whole review, it looks ALOT like the E30 coupe.
Funny you say that! because when I had one some people used to say that it look like a BMW
I learn how to drive manual in a Renault. I never seen a GTA but what a pretty car.
Very handsome and ergonomic car, I like it a lot!
Quite like it............a bit reminiscent of the MK1 VW Golf. Dont remember seeing them in the UK.
You would have seen them....
Renault 9 and Renault 11
Chrysler killed these off the following year..sigh
I miss my GTA 😔. Brought my daughter home in it 😢 😂!
Lol Jensen. Those were the days.
Renault Alliance GTA, greats and beauty cars
That's a very nice Renault Alliance Grand Theft Auto
Wish I had bought this instead of my '87 Hyundai Excel. I was in highschool and needed something cheap...if I could go back in time.
Rusty0869 I bet the Hyundai was more reliable and, at the very least, cheaper to own and maintain. For a high schooler, the Renault would have been a terrible choice.
Agreed. Always thought the GTA would be fun around the cones though.
GT6SuzukaTimeTrials Really hard to say. Hyundais were pretty terrible back then.
Rusty0869 My dad was going to get this but purchased the Merc Lynx instead. I am happy he got that. best car ever. The GTA looks soooooo cool but....well you know.
I would have brought a Dodge Aries K instead more reliably and the K's were built always up until 1996. Dodge Spirit /Plymouth Acclaim were stretched K car
Actually in this case, Alpine tunes the suspension in the Alliance ,but in Europe the R9 has a more powerful Alpine tuned engine
I had a white hardtop GTA. I miss that car!
A neighbor had one of these and it would never start when it got cold in our Wisconsin winters.
I like these little things.
"GTA"? The one thing owners of this contraption don't have to worry about, that's for sure!! 🚗😂
Anyone know how easy it is to fit a 125-132 hp 1.6 Turbo (from the Fuego) or 120-138 hp 2.0-2.2 Douvrin into an Alliance GTA?
the engine is an " f " series engine ....so you can fit easy an f7p/r ( 1,8 16v 135 hp or 2liter 148 hp ) into the car
the fuego turbo is a bit delicate ....it suffers from problems with the carb.
When was the last time you heard anyone use the term, "Pooped-out"? lol - As an American of Baby Boomer vintage, who lived through the years from the Muscle-Car era to the so called, "Energy Crisis"; that sent Detroit into a tailspin, I'd have to say that it was our bias against French engineering that caused the Alliance venture to fail. It was a mistake. We simply didn't think that the French could do anything except make bad copies of the superior German engineered automobiles. (but neither could "The Big Three") We had the very same problem with Italian cars, which is part of the reason Fiat and Vespa failed in the US market... Back in The Day.
I had a turbo Chevrolet Sprint. Much more reliable, and faster. Handled less well. Just sold it in 2010. I have seen like 10 or the GTA's and Sprint Turbos in my lifetime. Rare cars. I have owned a 92 VW GTI 16v since 2000. I will never sell it. best hot hatch ever avail in the USA
Renault's are not really bad cars. You have to religiously keep up on the maintenance on Renault's if you do that you can get lots of miles out of them if you beat on them they will not last. Every car made has weak and strong points about them. Renault's are prone to rusting some Renault's have weak starters and fuel pumps. But Renault's usually have good drive trains as-long as maintenance is kept up like oil coolant timing belt.
"You have to religiously keep up on the maintenance" - This seems to be a common theme with European cars and I think this is why the non luxury brands fail in the US. When Toyota and Honda could sell cars that were practically indestructible the idea of a car that requires a lot of preventive maintenance is a hard sell. Curiously, in the UK, it is my understanding that Hondas are "old geezer" cars, as mostly only oldsters over there appreciate that they don't require coddling to keep them running.
I'd love one in all white.
When it rains, you can actually hear these cars rust....just like the Alfasud from Alfa-Romeo...
Wait, so Renault sold in the US though AMC?
That's neat.
I feel old.
tytotheler92 Renault had a controlling interest in AMC for the better part of the 80s until their stake was sold to Chrysler in 1987. Chrysler took over AMC mainly to get its hand on Jeep.
nikeadidasdudetx I did not know that. That is very cool.
After the sale of AMC to Chrysler, Renault quickly exited the U.S. market. I think they were looking for a way out at that point, as AMC became a money pit for Renault and the "Alliance" between the two was not turning out in favor of Renault. All French car makers were gone by the end of the 80's, it was much harder to break into the American market then they thought it would be. The Japanese got it right with reliable fuel efficient cars, and then grow their base from there. Hyandai, followed similar a decade later with cheap fuel efficient cars, albeit with somewhat plstaticky cheap interiors. But now their offerings are as good as any manufacture, with a wide range of vehicles. Maybe if the French had offered far more reliable vehicles at a good price they might have done better. However, their dealer network was limited to AMC and mechanics were just not familiar with their systems, especially the electrical systems.
the best french engineers go to the aeronautic / spatial sector in france. We have not a sucess with our cars but we have a big sucess with our airplanes / helicopters in the world + usa
Anyone I knew with a Renault absolutely hated them
Here's a MotorWeek Retro Review of the Renault Alliance GTA from 1987.
Makes you wonder if the introduction to the Alliance which won "Motor Trends Car of the Year" in 1983 had waited until the GTA model instead was released in 1987 things could have turned out better for the AMC/ Renault merger which we all know failed miserably.
Doesn't matter now, since they've probably all gone away.
"We don't know what the moniker GTA stands for"
Really, you have no idea? VW is selling GTI's faster than they can build them and this is based on the Renault A-lliance platform. And the font of GTA on all the cladding is the same as VW's.
Wow 18 second quarter miles. Times have changed.
love this car. My dad had one
My first car, fun to drive
As much as I like Renaults, I still think they should have been sold as AMCs in the US. Could have made the difference in marketing and kept the company afloat.
I had a green matchbox👍
My friend had one. She got it as a grad present. this was a pretty big deal where i came from. As the car was only 5 years old or thereabouts It caught on fire..Never forget it..Its a nice looking car..Did the Nissan Sentra later copy this design..?
th eamericans workers don't know to build a car ? this car had no problem of fire in europe .
I didn't read Luis's post as the fire being a problem. Rather, he was saying how cool the car was that it would spontaneously combust. That's a feature only seen in high end exotics!
Well, I live in Europe, and I saw two of them on fire. And I do not drive that many miles.
Picking up that inside rear wheel at 3:17
I've been looking for a decent pre-owned one of these for years.
LOL, rust has fortunately claimed many of them.