RE: Venturi Atlantique: Time For Tea?
Discussion
some great write-ups here! Thank you for that!
The article from the Pistonheads is horrible, sometimes I wonder what their aim is?
There was a nice 400GT for sale, now it seems that it is for sale in Italy....
http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C447441
I would like to hear and see accelerations of either an Atlantique or a 400GT! Both are cars of my youth!
One Venturi is sadly completely forgotten; the 260LM - the lightweight Venturi
The article from the Pistonheads is horrible, sometimes I wonder what their aim is?
There was a nice 400GT for sale, now it seems that it is for sale in Italy....
http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C447441
I would like to hear and see accelerations of either an Atlantique or a 400GT! Both are cars of my youth!
One Venturi is sadly completely forgotten; the 260LM - the lightweight Venturi
paulyaudio said:
This is my Venturi Atlantique 300 single turbo. I use it quite regularly as it is very easy to potter about in or blast down a good B road. It also makes a better GT car than my old alpine A610 which I did love and miss lots! But I could not afford to keep both!
Bad times
Bacchus said:
some great write-ups here! Thank you for that!
The article from the Pistonheads is horrible, sometimes I wonder what their aim is?
There was a nice 400GT for sale, now it seems that it is for sale in Italy....
http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C447441
I would like to hear and see accelerations of either an Atlantique or a 400GT! Both are cars of my youth!
One Venturi is sadly completely forgotten; the 260LM - the lightweight Venturi
That one's been for sale many times.The article from the Pistonheads is horrible, sometimes I wonder what their aim is?
There was a nice 400GT for sale, now it seems that it is for sale in Italy....
http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C447441
I would like to hear and see accelerations of either an Atlantique or a 400GT! Both are cars of my youth!
One Venturi is sadly completely forgotten; the 260LM - the lightweight Venturi
It used to be light blue with a white central stripe (as can still be seen on the fourth photo). Many years ago I remember it had a brief write-up in one of the classic car magazine's "Ads on test" features. Their summary was that the experience of driving it was probably the closest you could get to flying an F-16 figher jet! I can't remember for certain but it was not a lot of money back then either.
Stunned Monkey said:
Hi All, as the next owner of R300 VEN, I can add a few notes… Cheers alpgta for the nudge 
I had wanted one of these ever since I first became aware of this gorgeous Frenchie with the engine and gearbox I knew and loved. I still think it’s one of the prettiest cars of all time. I always found the cockpit layout to be disappointing with the seating position too low, the dash too high and zero adjustment except the usual two on the seat. The handling was sublime and I can liken it to the lightness of an Elise, but bigger and a crapload faster (over 300ft-lbs at 2500rpm).
The single turbo 3.0 was lifted straight from the Alpine A610 with the only difference being increased fuel pressure to meet a standard 1 bar boost and lightly tweaked ECU map to compensate. The transmission too was the same albeit with the final drive flipped for mid-mounting. I spent some time troubleshooting the cutting-out issue which had not been fixed by removal of the immobiliser. I can understand how it felt like a “limp mode” because it would do it on anything other than light throttle, but it was not a high level intentional safe mode. The cause was much more prosaic: Overheating of the ECU’s injector drivers. The more you hoofed it, the hotter those FETs get. In the A610, the ECU is mounted in a ventilated compartment between the rear seats. On the Venturi, it’s screwed to the carpet underlay and covered with a layer of carpet. Spacing it off the wall by 5mm or so and removing the carpet stopped the problem. The other car of the same colour passed through my hands too and had the exact same issue – that’s owned by a bloke on the RAOC forum now I believe.
Electrics in general are not good on the Venturi. Connectors are poor quality AND bespoke (they decided to make male JPT connectors with more than two pins). I also managed to break one of the striker pins off by (gasp) Shutting The Door. I still have the £35 M8x1mm helicoil kit I had to buy to fix it…. Access to the engine is surprisingly good – everything’s accessible either from the back or under the access panel under the rear windscreen. Event he dizzy cap is easy enough to change from underneath if you have an M8 ratchet spanner.
When I got the car the boost control valve also wasn’t working, and a change of connector restored the flat-out neck-snapping acceleration the reviews of the time all raved about. I also replaced the brake light sensor because it wasn’t registering light braking…
I’d have another if one came up for the right money. The combination of the looks and the handling are worth the foibles.
Again, thanks for the write up. I enjoy car stories like this. Not in the same league but I have owned several MGs F TF ZT-T. I love leafing through the service histories, bills, receipts notes about repairs and faults from workshops all over the place. I had one car maintained by the factory, then main dealer all over the UK. Another with names of garage staff I knew.I had wanted one of these ever since I first became aware of this gorgeous Frenchie with the engine and gearbox I knew and loved. I still think it’s one of the prettiest cars of all time. I always found the cockpit layout to be disappointing with the seating position too low, the dash too high and zero adjustment except the usual two on the seat. The handling was sublime and I can liken it to the lightness of an Elise, but bigger and a crapload faster (over 300ft-lbs at 2500rpm).
The single turbo 3.0 was lifted straight from the Alpine A610 with the only difference being increased fuel pressure to meet a standard 1 bar boost and lightly tweaked ECU map to compensate. The transmission too was the same albeit with the final drive flipped for mid-mounting. I spent some time troubleshooting the cutting-out issue which had not been fixed by removal of the immobiliser. I can understand how it felt like a “limp mode” because it would do it on anything other than light throttle, but it was not a high level intentional safe mode. The cause was much more prosaic: Overheating of the ECU’s injector drivers. The more you hoofed it, the hotter those FETs get. In the A610, the ECU is mounted in a ventilated compartment between the rear seats. On the Venturi, it’s screwed to the carpet underlay and covered with a layer of carpet. Spacing it off the wall by 5mm or so and removing the carpet stopped the problem. The other car of the same colour passed through my hands too and had the exact same issue – that’s owned by a bloke on the RAOC forum now I believe.
Electrics in general are not good on the Venturi. Connectors are poor quality AND bespoke (they decided to make male JPT connectors with more than two pins). I also managed to break one of the striker pins off by (gasp) Shutting The Door. I still have the £35 M8x1mm helicoil kit I had to buy to fix it…. Access to the engine is surprisingly good – everything’s accessible either from the back or under the access panel under the rear windscreen. Event he dizzy cap is easy enough to change from underneath if you have an M8 ratchet spanner.
When I got the car the boost control valve also wasn’t working, and a change of connector restored the flat-out neck-snapping acceleration the reviews of the time all raved about. I also replaced the brake light sensor because it wasn’t registering light braking…
I’d have another if one came up for the right money. The combination of the looks and the handling are worth the foibles.
It's the story of a car. I love it.
Hurricane52 said:
I bought one from Nick Mee about 15 years ago and covered about 25K miles I think over about 7 years. Nick is an Aston specialist and a gentleman. He lost a lot of money trying to get people to take notice of the Atlantique, which is a great car. No-one in the UK, including Nick's mechanics, could get mine to run reliably. Its problems were intermittent, but fairly frequent. The worst kind of problems really. It would tease me no end. Extremely fast trips from London to Wales, then for no apparent reason "limp home" mode made some long weekends much longer then intended.
Eventually I had an obsessive auto electrician spend hours and hours tracing everything. He was impressed by the immobiliser. I remember him saying "if I had to install an immobiliser, this is the kind of thing I would do. It's a work of genius, a French genius." Apparently, Venturi built the cars then had this "genius" from Paris come to Dieppe to install an immobiliser deemed suitable for the UK market. It spoilt my ownership. It was eventually stripped out and I had one last lovely drive, before selling it in 2007 I think for about 18K to a Delorean/Alpine PRV specialist on the South coast. He sold it to France.
There were very few RHD Atlantiques - probably fewer than 10 - and some went to Asia. Mine was a lovely colour - a Rolls-Royce colour called Oyster something. It was grey with a copper hue. My wife said it was brown.
The few hardy Venturi owners tended to share info and I know one who has kept his silver one in Worcestershire to keep his fantastic A110 company. I think he gets his serviced by the ex-Venturi staff at Extreme Limite in France. I wish I had done that from the beginning.
They are a step up from the GTA (I have had a Turbo since 1992) in terms of speed and refinement. The handling is spot on and the mid engine layout made for a more stable car in side winds. My brother in law following me along B roads in some German car wondered if my brake lights were bust, truth is you didn't need the whopping (for their time) brakes that much - it just went round corners. I can see why Mr Mee and the press thought it a rival for the 911 - much better looking and quicker. In reality, it was more akin to the Esprit Turbo, but without that silly handbrake on the right sill which always caught your trousers on the way out.
All in all, the Atlantique is much missed and a more exclusive and exciting drive than the Ferrari 456GTA which replaced it, but that took us over the Alps to Italy no bother. And more importantly, home again, without any limping whatsoever.
Well written. Really enjoyed reading that! Thanks!Eventually I had an obsessive auto electrician spend hours and hours tracing everything. He was impressed by the immobiliser. I remember him saying "if I had to install an immobiliser, this is the kind of thing I would do. It's a work of genius, a French genius." Apparently, Venturi built the cars then had this "genius" from Paris come to Dieppe to install an immobiliser deemed suitable for the UK market. It spoilt my ownership. It was eventually stripped out and I had one last lovely drive, before selling it in 2007 I think for about 18K to a Delorean/Alpine PRV specialist on the South coast. He sold it to France.
There were very few RHD Atlantiques - probably fewer than 10 - and some went to Asia. Mine was a lovely colour - a Rolls-Royce colour called Oyster something. It was grey with a copper hue. My wife said it was brown.
The few hardy Venturi owners tended to share info and I know one who has kept his silver one in Worcestershire to keep his fantastic A110 company. I think he gets his serviced by the ex-Venturi staff at Extreme Limite in France. I wish I had done that from the beginning.
They are a step up from the GTA (I have had a Turbo since 1992) in terms of speed and refinement. The handling is spot on and the mid engine layout made for a more stable car in side winds. My brother in law following me along B roads in some German car wondered if my brake lights were bust, truth is you didn't need the whopping (for their time) brakes that much - it just went round corners. I can see why Mr Mee and the press thought it a rival for the 911 - much better looking and quicker. In reality, it was more akin to the Esprit Turbo, but without that silly handbrake on the right sill which always caught your trousers on the way out.
All in all, the Atlantique is much missed and a more exclusive and exciting drive than the Ferrari 456GTA which replaced it, but that took us over the Alps to Italy no bother. And more importantly, home again, without any limping whatsoever.
Hurricane52 said:
I wondered about the brake lights and asked Nick Mee's blokes. They thought it was some Citroen type pedal pressure switch and told me to live with it. ... I did like the driving position though and the seats were spot on for me. Long arms/body - short legs syndrome. Hope you're doing well.
The sensor was off a Golf if I recall, my friendly motor factors matched it up. I got waved at in traffic on the M25 once by someone telling me my brake lights didn't work - but it was that they only worked if you shoved the pedal hard enough!The seats are very comfortable, but too low and the steering wheel too high. Had I owned the car longer (sold it to fund a return to university), I'd have lifted the seat up a bit and had a go at fitting a Pug 406 steering column which is adjustable. The original was Pug 205.
Bacchus said:
I would like to hear and see accelerations of either an Atlantique or a 400GT! Both are cars of my youth!
On the question of acceleration, it’s fast. Really fast. The torque it punches out makes for low rev grunt rather than high end power, which is why its 0-60 is a bit off the pace by modern standards, but still pretty healthy (5.2 IIRC?). I now have a Speed 6 Cerbera and it’s sub-5s to 60 but you have to thrash the b
ks off the engine to do it. Any of the turbo PRV-engined cars exhibit a kind of effortlessness with a pronounced whooshing noise coming from behind you that pretty much drowns out the engine noise because the turbo is right at the top of the engine. It feels more like surfing a wave of torque than asking the engine to do anything particularly demanding. The last of the A300's had a twin turbo'd version of the new 60 degree engine. Only 2 came to the UK though.
Impasse said:
That's only the second GTA I've seen with a Renault nose badge instead of the Alpine "A". The other one was my old car - or are they the same vehicle?
No mine's slightly later - 88 F plate. Your old one is still around on SORN if you check here - https://www.vehicleenquiry.service.gov.uk/ There are a lot on SORN, it'd be nice to see more make it back to being in use.The diamond Renault badge on the nose is probably slightly more common as Renault couldn't badge them as Alpines at the time due to the name being registered by the old Rootes group on the Talbot Alpine. Some cars were ordered direct from Dieppe and so bypassed this (Renault still retained the rights to the name in continental Europe at the time) - those tend to have the recessed nose with the round Alpine badge. Equally some have also had the Alpine badge added later, so that accounts for quite a few that have been changed.
This is the only RHD 400GT in the wet at Bruntingthorpe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1uu6IQnYCU
LotusOmega375D said:
Wasn't the red 400GT rebuilt as RHD from an original crashed left hooker?
It was certainly rebuilt - I remember the guy trying to source the parts, unbelievably he did. Whether it was converted at the time from LHD to RHD - pass. Not sure, someone on the RAOC will know for sure.alpgta said:
No mine's slightly later - 88 F plate. Your old one is still around on SORN if you check here - https://www.vehicleenquiry.service.gov.uk/ There are a lot on SORN, it'd be nice to see more make it back to being in use.
The diamond Renault badge on the nose is probably slightly more common as Renault couldn't badge them as Alpines at the time due to the name being registered by the old Rootes group on the Talbot Alpine. Some cars were ordered direct from Dieppe and so bypassed this (Renault still retained the rights to the name in continental Europe at the time) - those tend to have the recessed nose with the round Alpine badge. Equally some have also had the Alpine badge added later, so that accounts for quite a few that have been changed.
This is the only RHD 400GT in the wet at Bruntingthorpe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1uu6IQnYCU
That's why they never called them Talbot Alpines in France. I did wonder when I went there as a kid and saw Simca Solaras Horizons but Alpines had some sort of number.The diamond Renault badge on the nose is probably slightly more common as Renault couldn't badge them as Alpines at the time due to the name being registered by the old Rootes group on the Talbot Alpine. Some cars were ordered direct from Dieppe and so bypassed this (Renault still retained the rights to the name in continental Europe at the time) - those tend to have the recessed nose with the round Alpine badge. Equally some have also had the Alpine badge added later, so that accounts for quite a few that have been changed.
This is the only RHD 400GT in the wet at Bruntingthorpe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1uu6IQnYCU
A question about the PVR engine with all this performance. Does it mean one could be dropped in an old Volvo 760 to replace the 180 BHP? PVR lump?
Kitchski said:
If it's technically an A300, that light blue one for sale in the link at the top must be one of the two!
It is indeed. I think it was the press car and features in a couple of mags you can probably find on ebay.LotusOmega375D said:
Wasn't the red 400GT rebuilt as RHD from an original crashed left hooker?
No, it was originally built for, I believe, a prospective new company owner (Malyaysia?), but the deal was never completed so the car never left Europe. The obvious outlet was the UK given that it is wrong-hand drive. It was crashed a few years back and later restored by a bloke called Kieth who subsequently sold it. If you look closely you'll see that there're a few differences from the majority of 400GT's, being a phase 2 of which only 3 were built. Front indicators being the most obvious change.wildcat45 said:
A question about the PRV engine with all this performance. Does it mean one could be dropped in an old Volvo 760 to replace the 180 BHP? PRV lump?
Yes, if you can fit the turbo & intercooling, and the transmission will withstand it, the bottom end is good for 400hp. To get this much means significant head work, custom cams and pistons. The B280E from a 760 has the late cross bolted block, thick-walled liners, large capacity oil pump and the best head design. It's a much underrated engine.The only factory turbo PRV's were the 2.5 (GTA and Renault 25) and 3.0 (Venturi A300, Alpine A610 and Renault Safrane BiTurbo - good luck sourcing a donor!)
I have a donor B280E for an upcoming DeLorean project. Already bought some cams from MFaulks....
Before Nicholas Mee, the MVS Venturi importer was a company called Eurotec in East Lulworth, Dorset.
They were a small Alpine Renault specialist and somehow got the concession for Venturi in the mid 1990s. They used to have a yellow 400GT in the showroom, but I guess you could count the number of their new Venturi sales on the finger of one finger, if that!
The proprietor (Alan Matthews) popped by our East Midlands home one day in a second-hand Venturi 260 he had just picked up. On another occasion, whilst our cars were in for servicing, he also took us out for a spin in a yellow A610, which showed us how much quicker and better put-together it was than a GTA. He also had a nice Renault 5 Turbo 2 which was a centre-fold feature in De Agostini's monthly 1993 publication "Encyclopedia of Supercars". I still have a copy.
They were a small Alpine Renault specialist and somehow got the concession for Venturi in the mid 1990s. They used to have a yellow 400GT in the showroom, but I guess you could count the number of their new Venturi sales on the finger of one finger, if that!
The proprietor (Alan Matthews) popped by our East Midlands home one day in a second-hand Venturi 260 he had just picked up. On another occasion, whilst our cars were in for servicing, he also took us out for a spin in a yellow A610, which showed us how much quicker and better put-together it was than a GTA. He also had a nice Renault 5 Turbo 2 which was a centre-fold feature in De Agostini's monthly 1993 publication "Encyclopedia of Supercars". I still have a copy.
Stunned Monkey said:
Yes, if you can fit the turbo & intercooling, and the transmission will withstand it, the bottom end is good for 400hp. To get this much means significant head work, custom cams and pistons. The B280E from a 760 has the late cross bolted block, thick-walled liners, large capacity oil pump and the best head design. It's a much underrated engine.
The only factory turbo PRV's were the 2.5 (GTA and Renault 25) and 3.0 (Venturi A300, Alpine A610 and Renault Safrane BiTurbo - good luck sourcing a donor!)
I have a donor B280E for an upcoming DeLorean project. Already bought some cams from MFaulks....
Thanks for that. I was merely musing in a "what if?" kind of way and thinking about our old 940 Turbo from 20-odd years ago.The only factory turbo PRV's were the 2.5 (GTA and Renault 25) and 3.0 (Venturi A300, Alpine A610 and Renault Safrane BiTurbo - good luck sourcing a donor!)
I have a donor B280E for an upcoming DeLorean project. Already bought some cams from MFaulks....
Pretty shape, fast, Mercedes-Benz monowiper, really nice-looking interior... looks like a cross between an MR2, an NSX and a 355... shouldn't be too expensive to run either, given the engine is basically a PSA/Renault unit... really rather attractive, probably one of the most underrated sports cars of recent times.
A picture of some of France's finest. I loved the red 400 and it is now owned by a chap who also owns one of the yellow A610's in the background. I own the other yellow 610 which is a fabulous car. Had it for nearly 10 years now and I can't imagine not owning it. Absolutely adore the thing.
strangehighways said:
This thread is an example of why I love pistonheads...something a bit rare and interesting written about and then owners appear and write about their experiences..thank you so much for your contributions guys.
I've just been reading this thread thinking just the same.Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff