September 2010 44 Pages Draft.pdf - Renault Owners Club Forum

m o d I f I E dflexibility than mechanical transmission.in the realms of “because I can”.The boot capacity increases to 2.4 m3. Interms of handling, the manufacturerbelieves that the handling is improved by70% and braking, with six discs, by 33%.In turn, the four rear wheels are lesssensitive to the effect of drift.Christian de Leotard explained moreseriously about his creation. "It is in theinterests of safety that I created this car.The technique of the six wheelsrevolutionizing a sedan in handling andbraking, but especially in the payload.”The car happily supports 700 kg of loadfor a consumption of 10/11 litres per100km (about 26mpg).So, that’s the 5x6 sorted? Well, it shouldbe except that Renault brought out abetter car to play with in 1980 (30 yearsold this year!) The 5 GT Turbo. That cargives far more scope for fun (althoughprobably defeating all the main reasonsfor doing it at the same time.)For that, we need a turbo (or two). TheChristian de LeotardBut this was not Christian de Leotard’sfirst foray into six-wheels, as he originallystarted with Range Rovers). For that wecan at least look to the Renault 4, againusing the same Sinpar system. In thiscase, most of the “specials” are like theRenault 5 Turbo, more for the interest ofthe owner than the practicality of perhapsa Renault 4 Van or Renault 5TL.But we have wandered away from thepracticality of the six-wheeled car.However, with the birth of anotheranniversary car, there was the chance toput this technology back onto apotentially commercial footing.This then leads on to an even older carand the last one in our mathematicalequation, the 750. This lends itself well toa six-wheel and even a two engineconversion, as each gearbox, engine andsubframe assembly is pretty muchcompact and self supporting. This allowsthe rear wheels to be close together, sothere is little scrubbing on corners and thesuspension allows a little twist to help.It’s also a compact car so the finishedarticle will not be so long that one can’tpark it.At this point the 4CV lads will probablybe having kittens wondering w,hat’s beendone to all those old 4CVs passingthrough our hands. Don’t worry it’s nothappened yet but perhaps someone isthinking about it. After all, this car wasrecently on French Ebay and it’s not faroff reaching the limits of a Renault 4CVmodifications. Yours for 6500 Euros, Isuppose the one partial good thing is thatit may have produced some spares for therest of us?4CV joke of a spare engine in the boot isactually true here, for it really has twoengines, one in the front and one in theback.Amicale Automobiles des Tissier havetaken the principle and applied it not onlyto Citroën’s CX but also to the Espace(another anniversary car). In this case tomake a “stretch ambulance.This maybe allows us to go backwards alittle bit in terms of models but a little bitforwards in conversions. This is definitelyAlasdair WorsleyR E N o T E s m A G A Z I N E355