He deeply dislikes alarms; I highly recommend the Explorer Sport Trac piece. His morning started off gloriously that day, then declined rapidly as he set off the truck's car alarm 3 times. He was so annoyed, and the damn alarm turned off the moment he screamed 'I got the keys... I got the damn title!' 🤣
@@holliesheet3182 Yes, nice to have my Bill back on a regular cadence even if it's only till the beginning of t;he summer. I don't know, maybe he'll continue with the channel when it gets hot. Oh wait, this isn't work for Bill. ha ha
@@lijoima a side note on how good of a guy Bill is. My girlfriend sent him a self addressed envelope and asked if he would simply write me a little personal message for my birthday. Not only did he do that, he sent me a Curious Cars hat! She never asked for the hat. I wanted to at least share that with someone because the guy is a TRUE class act!
Ah, the 80's. When you could tell what package level a car was by counting the delete plugs. They couldn't just let you have nothing, they had to put it plastic blocks to remind you of what you didn't have. This car seems to have a lot of them. I can't think of all the options that could fill those slots.
Some manufactures manage to make them less obvious; these almost seem to be designed to taunt. I believe the Alliance had a pretty long option list of little bell and whistle type things, most notably including the world's first remote keyless entry system.
I was a kid in the 80s when my dad had one of these back when they were new, 84 I think (tan 4 door exactly like the one on the Motor Trend cover @ 8:56🙂) That entire car was a delete card! They were just everywhere in that thing -even the stupid unpainted drivers side only mirror had no control stick for it -just a delete card! Had an AM radio though -holy crap! It just literally had zero options, we used to laugh our asses off at it as kids every time we got in the thing and slammed its clumsy-stupid doors shut. Was what dad could afford at the time -1st divorce and two pups, that was just life back then -brings back fond memories from that period though, even that turd of a car made us laugh and we got through it.🙂
My Dad worked for AMC Milwaukee and Kenosha for 32 years. My Dad always supported the company he loved. So yeah we had one of these pieces of S**T . The Levi's Gremlin was my favorite.
I was a very well respected mechanic in the 80s and I catered to the best. I refused to service junk, this specimen included. I would recommend my customers to look at Chevettes or excorts instead of this garbage. If they so chose to buy renaut, I suggested to them to have service provided by there dealer.
I was a mechanic during this time and these were just absolute garbage, especially after getting a few years on them. Plastic parts breaking/falling off and overheating were just a couple of the problems like Bill says. Picking this over a aero body Thunderbird for car of the year was a joke.
We bought a 1987 Renault GTA Convertible in 1991. It was one of the best handling cars I've ever owned. It's amazing to me that you found an Alliance in this superb condition lo these many years later!
Deer CAN be very dangerous! Couple'a years ago I had just put my tractor away, and was walking away from the garage, when I stopped sort of mid-step trying to remember if I had shut of the fuel valve on the tractor. As I paused there for that brief fraction of a second I felt a woosh of air right in front of me and felt something almost touching me. It was a big deer running full speed through the 20 foot gap between the garage and the house. Had I not paused to ponder if I had shut the fuel of..had I just taken the next step, it would have hit me like a locomotive, and at the very least I would have been busted up like that Renault if it had been hit by a tyke on a tricycle. I don't scare easily; I once stepped in front of a charging bull to save someone..but that deer SCARED me! BTW: The Matador video was the first Curious Cars vid I had ever seen and what got me hooked!
Yup...Deer are like squirrels, when crossing a highway...dozens of folks are killed by these goofy animals, jumping right into a windshield, and crushing the driver.
'I would rather eat razor blades than do a review on a Toyota Solara' ... as always Bill absolutely NAILS it with one simple sentence that says volumes in a terse comment. Amen and amen brother Bill.
I do not know why Bill hates on a ...Solara!...they were based on the Camry, a fine and reliable vehicle...I admit the styling of it was not really what they were aiming for.
Hey Bill, sorry about the shitty weather!!! Here in Southern California we had record snowfall & people in the mountains are still snowed in!!! I'm glad that you are keeping up with your coronavirus whiskey!!! As for the Renault Alliance, my sister had a four door years ago, it was okay, just a little odd. Thanks for sharing another fun video!!! 🥃
"I'm deep into my coronavirus whiskey, and I've got my .38 in my pocket" Classic Bill. Never change man. & My mom wanted a Fuego pretty bad back then but never got one.
I've lived in Kenosha, Wisconsin all of my life and these cars were once a common sight on almost every main road in town. By the time I was in high school (late 1980's-early 1990's) the Appliance (as we called them) as well as the hatchback Encore were the perfect "first car" for most kids my age at the time. And yes, they were shit boxes. There were so many of them in the school parking lot that they almost outnumbered other makes & models.
I can remember those phone-e spoke wheel cover being sold at K-mart back in those days. One winter in the Chicagoland area and the salt on the roads would destroy them with rust..
A good friend of mine had an 86 2 door DL in a sage green metallic with similar interior color to this one. She drove it 130k miles. She called it the appliance. Bland but started every day.
Evening Bill, this looks like what we knew in the UK as a Renault 9, although we never got a drop top version. Sweating in early March? If only. It's cold, cold, cold over here.
I'm sure those wire wheel hubcaps were bought off the shelf at Walmart. I'm positive they weren't original. Love your videos!!! I still wish you would, at times, turn the camera to your face when you talk directly to us....
My parents had an 86 Alliance DL convertible , which had an completely diffrent dash and interior lay out then this L, which I think was a step below the DL. The one thing I remember about the car was that the repair cost for the brakes had my father in an uproar because they were rather expensive because they were French parts, not American motors. My cousin had an L trimmed Alliance in high school and I remember that some of those buttons on the dash were for rear window defrost, cruise control, fog lamps, 4 window down for the power windows to be retracted by the driver, interior light control, and some type of on board digital computer read out menu scroll for the screen to the right of driver on center by your knee and a digital clock was under that.
I briefly owned a 4 door hatchback Alliance years ago. What a silly little car! I wish I had kept it and fixed it up, but I was only 16 and didn’t have the appreciation for quirky cars that I have today.
Bill, love that you’ve finally done a Renault and a Classic Citroën. Would love to see you do more, especially classic Citroën’s. Also would love to see you do that Isuzu Impulse/Piazza that you talked about wanting to do.
I saw this car at Mecum. I was at Mecum for 3 days and drove for 2 of them. I was excited beyond a reasonable level when I saw this sitting out in the field. I was even more excited when I found out Bill bought it and have been waiting patiently for this video to drop. As far as performance and all of that goes, this car is boring as hell, but it’s cool now in that there are like almost none of them left. They were disposable cars. These were the cars that the people with questionable credit bought at the local tent sale. I had an uncle that bought two of them. They got the job done for what they were. This was one of my favorite Curious Cars videos in a long time.
My first car was a 1984 Renault Fuego! Loved it! I learned how to work on cars with that POS! I would love to find one, but they are all recycled by now. Love ya Bill!
I owned a FUEGO and it was the first car built in America with a remote. Great looking car had a beautiful interior. That thing would start in the dead of winter but you couldn’t drive in snow . 55 mph speed limit. Great heater and had everything.
My sister purchased a 2 door hatchback Encore in 1985 and drove it for 20 years. It held together quite well, although towards the end the head liner started to come unglued. It had great suspension that soaked up almost everything it encountered. I have doubts about parts supply for these today.
My parents new 85 Alliance was charming, handsome, had unusual features for an economy car and drove creamy smooth, but the car fell apart immediately and the engine blew at just 55k!!! Everyone I knew saw extreme poor reliability with these cars and would set them on fire or had them stolen to write them off. The 1.4L were far more reliable than the terrible1.7L. So sad. THANK YOU BILL, GREAT REVIEW for the memories!!!
Had an Alliance during college. Bill's comments are spot on. Its gas mileage was terrific but unreliable as hell. Transmission crapped out. Coincidentally, it disappeared in NYC. 🙄
Thought it was stupid the first time I saw one in the 80’s. However, cheers to AMC for actually creating a convertible out of it, with some considerable effort.
I was in college in 1986 and a friend picked up a used very early Renault alliance 4 door 5 speech and loved the car. It lasted 4 years from freshman year to senior year when he went back to his country.
I so enjoy your videos and commentary Bill. I'm in England and look forward to your description of the weather and those animals and just generally love watching these lovely cars. Keep up the great work my friend.
Bill You’re the best man. I love your forthrightness and honesty. I never thought I would watch 40 minute reviews of 1991 Chevy Caviliers and whatever this thing is… but I do. I find your voice soothing. I often play one of your videos as I am falling asleep. Is that weird? Yes it is. But it works for me. Keep up the good work man
This is the review I never thought I'd see but only because this car was such a dud, at least in my experience. I learned to drive on mom's Pacer but then she got rid of that and got a Renault Alliance. I loved the Pacer but hated the Alliance. The thing I remember most was how the steering wheel and driver's seat didn't feel like they were lined up with each other. And then there was the lack of power. A great review. I'm glad to see that my low opinion of this car wasn't wrong. That said, if you are going to get one of these then I suppose the convertible is the one to get. Good luck to the new owner.
Leave a Chevy Cavalier convertible and a BMW E30 cabriolet in the barn overnight...I always liked the exterior styling. These were interesting cars until you got behind the wheel. Still, I'm impressed with this example. You always seem to find curious cars, Bill.
By 1984 in 1985 gasoline was really cheap again and people forgot about fuel economy. Where have I heard that before? AMC dealerships were also considered poor relations of others, not the best experience generally
No matter the car, I always dig the videos from Bill. He is one of a kind and does a great job with the hand held camera. Leave the go pros to the crotch rocket pilots with those goofy fake mohawks on their helmets
I had the GTA version of this Renault that looked exactly like the one here: 24:35. It was a fun car to drive. Mine was an 87 with a 2.0 litre I-4 and the 5-speed manual which was way faster than this one Bob is reviewing. Excellent gas mileage. It was an eye catcher as well. There was even a race series called the Renault Cup where they raced GTAs..Mine did not fall apart, didn't spend as much time back at the dealership like the VW Rabbit GTI, and I loved it!!
I had a 1.4 and it would smoke the. Front tires on takeoff , and you can believe it or not but I had my math checked and I did it right but I got 52 miles a gallon with 2 big people and a bunch of lathe tools in the trunk lol. The 1.4 had been sold by Renault as a commercial Engine for boats and construction tools but it was a wet sleeved engine and it was made to run for hours and hours in boats.it was a great little engine and it was time tested and the little guy was tough as nails.my father was in a wreck with mine and it rolled a dump truck and a pickup truck and dad only Brock his collar bone it had a great safety rating.
There was a junkyard around me that opened in 1960 and stopped taking in cars in the early 80's. At some point he realized his profits dropped off because he didn't have parts for newer vehicles. So he bought some modern cars to bring customers back in; 1 1982 Trans Am Recaro edition, 1 90s Taurus, and 2 Renault Alliances. It didn't save the business.
I grew up in the L.A. area in the 80s and 90s. I graduated high school in 1987, and the bellweather cars at that time among kids were German cars--mostly VW Golfs and Rabbits. Japanese 'sporty' cars were also making an inroad at that time. I liked 'Merican 60s and 70s cars, but was definitely going against the trend in L.A. I do recall quite a few people buying the Maserati BiTurbo and Quattroporte (although that was a rare car--mostly the 2 door BiTurbo). Also, the yuppies were a new trend, so BMW 3 series galore. The Iranian immigrants and Jewish people (mostly directly from Israel), and other people from the Middle East region of L.A. loved Mercedes Benzs (the housewives loved the 190s) This car; not so much, so I am not surprised it did not do well overall (L.A. was kind of a 'trendsetter' of sorts with cars at that time--if it didn't catch on there, it wouldn't be popular anywhere else).
Oh, I drove around in the passenger seat in a 1983 Renault alliance brand new with the time it was a stick shift. I forget the gears may have been five this Italian builder I worked for I was 16 years old. He used to drive me around the property to property, in the car I do remember he would pull up in a Cutlass edit 71 and I asked him where is your note and said I was being repaired every once in a while he would have that cutlass so I don’t think they were dependable they may have been desirable But not dependable. Great stuff love this channel it was dark blue with tan interior
I worked for a European construction company in France and drove a Renault: it was a four pot and performed very well. The build was good for the price. I was later given a Renault 25, the six pot that was a great car. I recall this AMC vehicle and it was not too bad. Probably as good as the like models from US makers.
They were great cars in Europe, just like Fiats. But here for some reason they fell apart with the automatic transmissions and ECU (computer) constantly failing after only a few years. The American market Renault was not the same durable Renault from Europe and remember, about 98% of cars sold here had automatic transmissions during that time.
The car is so small, that we can see so much of Yourself (Bill) like never before! ;-) Great video, as always! In Europe, we have had very many Renault 9 (sedan) and 11 (hatch) back then, but there absolutely is no one left. Since more than 2 decades I haven't seen one anymore.
I remember these cars when I was younger and there were not many. The marriage of AMC and Renault was just not good. I enjoyed the hell out of this video.
Thank you for this great and very detailed video on the Renault Alliance. I grew up in France and the Renault 9 and 11 models, which the Alliance and the Encore are based on, were very popular in France and pretty reliable cars. The hatchback Renault 11 was better looking and less boring than the very boxy Renault 9. If I recall the Renault 9 was elected car of the year in 1982 in France and as a teenager at the time I did not understand why because it did look quite boring to me.
Ex wife bought an Alliance February 84. Four door sedan ,1.4 liter with the automatic trans . Within the first 12 months , 3 fuel pumps went out . A rear wheel cylinder leaked . The AC stopped cooling . All this was fixed by dealer under their 12 month warranty . Month 13 ..... the transmission goes out . No drive . only reverse . Got it towed to dealer who by this time was quite familiar with us . I remember to this day the service managers face when we walked in . To his credit ,and the credit of the dealer , they backdated the repair and covered it under its 12 month warranty . A few minor issues over the next couple years . By 1987 the car developed a pretty big oil leak at the main seal . We ended up at a used car dealer looking for something else . We traded the Alliance outright for a 1980 Oldsmobile Omega . Just like the one at 9:52 in this video . The Omega while rusting itself into oblivion ended up being a great car mechanically . We got 4-5 years of use out of it with nothing more than the basics , oil , tires , brakes . When people talk about the Yugo and its place and ranking in history , I always say the Renault Alliance was right on its heels .
My grandfather who was an engineer for ford was a fan of AMC/Renault products in the 80s, we had a 79 LeCar, at a point he wanted a 83 Alliance but the dealership wouldn't or couldn't get the model that he wanted.
We had an 85 Encore when I was a kid. It didn’t last terribly long, but it was our first new car so I was excited. First time smelling new car smell! I’ve watched many of your videos and always have something to laugh out loud at. The exasperated sighs in this one really killed me😂 You remind me of myself lol
These were far better looking than those Ugly X Cars from GM and it was right for the time, but Renault's were not known for their quality. I had a Renault Le Car that was very cute but had a Drivers Seat that would fall down while you were driving!! What a Death Trap that was!!
I had an Alliance convertible that looked just like that. It was a tanning bed on wheels in my early 20's, lots of fun for awhile but absolutely miserable a couple of years into ownership.
Bill, Thank you for all the information that you no doubt spend time researching the period to give the whole story of the vehicle and everything that was happening at the time that is relevant to the vehicles history, success, failure. This is why I absolutely love your channel . Bill, you have a great voice that is awesome for these videos. You just bring it all together so well. Please just keep doing what you're doing. Nobody else holds a candle to you, Bill
Great Video Bill !! When I was in the Car business I had to take a 85 coupe and a AMC Lecar on a package deal back in the day I thought I would never sell them but I sold the Lecar in less than a day and the coupe the following week ! Again no one can reveiw a car like you !
Great review as usual. Funny that Renault eventually found its way back into the US market through Nissan, of all things. The original Versa was pretty much a badge engineered Renault!
During this time period ['84/'85], I drove a 1977 Cutlass Salon 2 dr. with a 350 V-8. I never would've considered buying a Renault Alliance--even if it was built to last. My Olds had low miles and I was happy with it despite the mpg/gas cost. I do understand the RA's appeal and it's intrepid marketing campaign...also, Bill, you're the best auto guy on YT---keep 'em coming.
I remember in about 1977 when the old man pulled into the gas station and gas had went from 59.9 to 79.9 per gallon. He told me that if gas got much higher we would have to sell the matador wagon and try to get one of those Japanese jobs. His friends had told him the AC was robbing the mileage so like a cow killing they decided to cut the ac belts on all of their cars. I don't know how much it helped but I do know my mom got a new pinto squire wagon.
Bill. You did it again. LOVE EVERYTHING YOU DO, BUDDY. My mom bought a 1984 hardtop. It had the 1.4l engine which was a total dog. It had 23,000 miles on it. The head gasket blew. I was constantly working on it. It actually had an electronically controlled automatic, which was quite advanced for the time, but the transmission failed when it only had 28,000 miles. A host of other problems which had me often going to the dealer for things like a throttle cable which costed $80 in 1990.
Bill, excellent video! I look forward to new videos every week, especially anything 80s! I thing it would be wonderful if you were to review a first generation ford escort, especially a diesel model. Talk about a vehicle that is extremely rare today , at least in the midwest rust belt, that used to be everywhere 30 years ago. I really appreciate all your videos you make, absolute gold! Gold Jerry! Gold!
We had one. At a restaurant with valet parking one night, the Maitre d' came up to us with a worried look, and informed my dad, "The wheel, she fall off the car!" We laughed, and Dad ordered another bottle of wine. I mean, if you're going to drive a French automobile, you must have the proper attitude.
Bill you literally made my day with this review! I learned how to drive a stick/manual with one of these Renault's back in 87! 😂 You tickled me (belly laughed) when you said "You drop your lady friend off, pull up at the Asian massage and they see you get out of a Renault Alliance and they're not gonna expect much of a tip out of ya! "🤣🤣 Classic! OMG! THAT WAS HILARIOUS! STOP IT!
I work for Stellantis, and I’m hoping this merger works out better than the last one. But they’re killing off the Hellcats because of emissions, so I hope the replacement is more interesting than the Alliance LOL
I was a happy Canadian sitting in the back seat of the sedan version once, it was very spacious and there was room enough for your feet to fit beneath the front seats.
Hey Bill,the car looks pretty good,the condition seem excellent but the hubcaps are not doing anything for it.Different hubcaps or a set of nice alu rims would do wonders.
