RE: Renault Sport Spider: Spotted

[aelord]

A reminder that Renault have a history of screwing up these sorts of cars.

[Helicopter123]

aelord said:

A reminder that Renault have a history of screwing up these sorts of cars.

They do in deed, here's the A110 on Top Gear, although it was an early car.

[loskie]

I remember looking at them at the BTCC Knockhill mid 90's, thought they were fantastic looking cars. Pretty good investment if its worth more than new for such a young car.

[anonymous-user]

It's easy to forget the BIG issues with Sport Spyder include,

• Most of the cars were sold without any windscreen, it always being intended as racer (although the very few RHD cars had screens)
• The optional wet weather tonneaur/roof thing was a complete joke, making the Elise "camping holiday" roof look more like a 5* hotel!

Put simply, it was never really a viable road car and hence extremely vulnerable to the lighter, cheaper and more usable Elise. It's staggering to think the old Lotus tub is now in the massively expensive £85k Exige cars whereas Renault will sell you an Alpine for around £50k. A complete price reversal although one car now has nearly double the power of the other.

[BFleming]

With all this talk of the Elise wiping the floor with the Sport Spider, it's hardly comparing like for like. Of the 1800-or-so Sport Spiders produced, only 100 came to the UK over 3 years of production. In 1997 alone Lotus produced almost 1500 Elise's - of which the majority were sold in the UK.
I lived in Germany at the time & don't remember ever even seeing an Elise, but you'd see the occasional Sport Spider. I recall the Renault garage in Gronau had a Sport Spider in the showroom for about 6 months, and it looked exotic. Overpriced, quirky and not weatherproof, the showroom (or equally dry & cosseted space) was probably the best place for it.

[daveco]

How come it weighs so much when the Series 1 Elise was c.700kg??

[Equus]

BFleming said:

With all this talk of the Elise wiping the floor with the Sport Spider, it's hardly comparing like for like. Of the 1800-or-so Sport Spiders produced, only 100 came to the UK over 3 years of production. In 1997 alone Lotus produced almost 1500 Elise's - of which the majority were sold in the UK.

That's rather a matter of cause and effect, though.

Lotus originally anticipated that the Elise would be a niche car for hardcore Lotus enthusiasts, and expected the total production run not to exceed 1000 vehicles. That they've sold so many, and derivatives remaining in production, is down to it being an unprecedented and unexpected success.

That Renault only sold 1800 Spiders in total and quit production after 3 years is down to it being an abysmal failure...

[Nealio]

Sorry to be the pedantic geek but these don't have a Williams Clio engine - it's from the 2.0 16V mk1 Megane coupe.

Both are F7R engines but the megane engine differs in some not completely insignificant respects.

[dylan39]

... Bought mine for £10k in 2005 with 11000 miles. Just as Renault won the F1 championship (I worked for them back then) - yup one of the most special cars I have ever driven. Yes the speed, sound, handling etc were not on par with the elise etc but as a driving experience it was great! P199NSF still on the road I see!

[kambites]

daveco said:

How come it weighs so much when the Series 1 Elise was c.700kg??

The chassis was a lot heavier, partly because it was welded rather than glued and I think mostly because it just wasn't very well designed. The engine weighs a fair bit more too - the K-series in the Elise is very light for a four-pot car engine.

I doubt those fancy doors are as light as the Elise's rather more conventional items either.

[Trevor555]

ash73 said:

How much did the Spider weigh?

Official weight was 930kg.

But pushing it in, and out, of my garage like I have done with many cars, it felt heavier.

Maybe I just had a sticky caliper.

[TEKNOPUG]

You'd need a matching colour BMW Z1 for the pair I guess...