Thursday, December 1, 2011
AMC Renault A sensible car for the times
The Renault 18i was introduced in Europe nearly three years ago. It has undergone a number of refinements since then and should now be debugged to the point of being an exceptionally dependable car. For the North American market, the 18 is known as the 18i (for fuel injection) and is available as a 4-door sedan or a 5door wagon. Also for our market, the 18i uses the optional (in Europe) 1647cc 4cylinder as the only available engine. The AMC-imported 18i has L-Jetronic fuel injection for emissions purposes, instant starts, no warmups, overall low maintenance, and better economy.
The aluminum 4-cylinder is placed conventionally in the engine compartment and utilizes a long transaxte assembly behind it to drive the front wheels. A 5-speed manual transmission or the optional 3-speed automatic transaxte can be obtained in either body style. The engine produces 81.5 horsepower at 5000 rpm and gives an extremely satisfactory performance. Engine response runs from good to excellent, especially if each gear is held a little long before up-shifting. At high rpm, the engine tends to be a bit noisy and produces more than normal vibration. But this could be considered a problem only if the car were consistently driven hard. The sedan’s 60/40 weight bias totals to a comfortable 2263 pounds of spirited front-drive performance.
