30 years old, some mega-mileage Renault erm... Alpine?

30 years old, some mega-mileage Renault erm... Alpine?

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alpgta

Original Poster:

81 posts

150 months

Saturday 22nd September 2018
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Hi all, since it's an anniversary I thought I'd post this for posterity!

Technically 30 years old this weekend since its first UK registration so I'd guess a little bit older in terms of factory build date, however I don't have a birth certificate for it so we'll settle on that.

So for the uninitiated, it's a Renault Alpine GTA V6 Turbo, owned by me since 1995 so 23 odd years and in the spirit of Poppopbangbang's mighty 911 story I thought it worth putting up a thread.

The new Alpine A110 is obviously out as well so for anyone wondering about longevity and the fragile nature of all things French, it's probably worth putting it into context.

For quite a few years it was the only car we had, and pretty much used as such. That meant trips to the shops, garden centre, airports, holidays, pretty much anything and everywhere. Snow, floods, sunshine, on roads and over fields, you name it, it went with me. 20 years has seen it witness weddings, funerals, births (including bringing back our first child from hospital in a baby carrier - yes you can fit one in the back seats) and everything in between.



(Ermm it can do mud as well as snow)



What's that mean? Well it retired from 'active duty' about 10 years ago to have a refresh, but by that stage I was at around 188K miles, now 193K+




The refresh coincided with child no1 and then child no2... purchase of a more family orientated BMW M3 and some sense and sensibility perhaps?



In truth the GTA would probably still have been pressed into regular use, but the refresh was sort of forced upon me by some repair work that didn't quite go as planned and as a result it ended up languishing in my parents garage for several years, whilst I struggled to find time (or funds) due to moving house.

When I did get a chance to refresh things, the only logical course of action was to go all out. So engine and gearbox came out for a look, as a compression test revealed numbers were down on two pots. A plan of action was hatched with RATS in Derbyshire for a full engine rebuild and other associated work. Block was sent off to be steam cleaned and of course it's at this stage that the Alpine gods struck as the aluminium around the liners was now paper thin. Iron liners in a silted up block had set up a sacrificial reaction and (after 25 years or so) the coolant had simply eaten its way through the casing.... two holes later it was new block and upgrade time....what else would it be, this is Pistonheads after all?


To be continued....

(steven)

446 posts

213 months

Saturday 22nd September 2018
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Good effort. I will keep an eye on this.

Butter Face

30,192 posts

159 months

Saturday 22nd September 2018
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Love it, that colour looks ace.

chrismc1977

854 posts

111 months

Saturday 22nd September 2018
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Remember seeing these race back in the day!!!

Must be genuinely rare nowadays?

Mike-tf3n0

571 posts

81 months

Saturday 22nd September 2018
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Back in the mid 80s I was running Renault's long gone showroom near Covent Garden, because of that and also because of my competition background I had responsibility for the sales of the GTA in Central London. I have very fond memories of these cars, lovely handling, decent performance and comfortable inside. The interior was a bit plasticky unfortunately, not quite up to Porsche standards but the thing that really deadened sales in the UK was the fact that Renault insisted it was badged as a Renault. Had it been badged as an Alpine I remain convinced it would have been a resounding commercial success. OP, I still have a few original and unissued brochures so if you would like one to go with the car PM me and I'll pop one in the post.

alpgta

Original Poster:

81 posts

150 months

Saturday 22nd September 2018
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According to How Many Left probably about 70 currently on the road (GTA, GTA Turbo + Le Mans) and maybe another 200 SORN.

Add to that about 20 or so of the later A610 and another 30 odd on SORN.

So yes always rare and always fun to see another on the road, but it's usually only club activities nowadays when that tends to happen.

giveitfish

4,030 posts

213 months

Saturday 22nd September 2018
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Looking forward to reading more! Long had a soft spot for Alpine as a brand and always look around them at the Classic British Welcome at Le Mans.

I’m currently driving a Lotus Evora as my only car which in many ways is the modern equivalent. I’m finding it both awkward and rewarding in equal measure. Supermarket parking is the biggest pain so far, but it’s successfully completed tip runs and collected flat pack furniture.

Would be interested to hear about how it was to live with when new as well as the about the refresh.


alpgta

Original Poster:

81 posts

150 months

Saturday 22nd September 2018
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It's probably pretty similar to an Evora in as much as Alpine are a sort of French Lotus in many respects.

It was 10 years old when I got it, So had about 70K miles on the clock. I was young at the time so everything is less of a concern in terms of practicality. Two rear seats and the space up front meant there was almost always enough room. It even got used a few times collecting computer equipment including a couple of big CRT monitors.

These days being that much older I tend to notice traffic is much worse and it's very low when you're being followed by a 4x4 whose lights are shining directly in your mirror. In fact I was stuck in traffic on the M25 a while back alongside a Ferrari FF - I was dwarfed by the FF.

Servicing was always limited. PJ autos in London for a very long time, but that's the rub... not exactly a dealer round every corner. Parts are a pain and very limited now. RAOC (Renault Alpine Owners Club) is very useful in that respect but still can't magic up something that is not available.

As an example I've just had the rear calipers rebuilt. They're pretty much unique (well almost the same as the 205 mid engined Grp B car but that's hardly a help) so rebuild is the only course. If you know what they are then it can be done, but in this case took the best part of a month what with one thing and another.

It's a second car now so that's not quite the issue it once was.

giveitfish

4,030 posts

213 months

Sunday 23rd September 2018
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alpgta said:
It's probably pretty similar to an Evora in as much as Alpine are a sort of French Lotus in many respects.
They’re both critically acclaimed yet slow-selling plastic panelled 2+2 sports/GT cars using v6 engines from family saloon cars smile

The performance and power figures of the last A610 and my N/A Evora are also surprisingly close from what I’ve just read on Wikipedia. There’s a definite kinship!

I also suffer from 4x4 lights but not as badly as my Elise did, that really was dwarfed by everything. Sadly parts supply is another commonality, it’s just taken 3 weeks to get drop links and bushes for mine and the car is still in productions FFS.

Have you kept your car fairly original or is it more of a resto-mod now? I guess with such a long standing owners club there are various improvements and upgrades people have implemented over the years?

RM

580 posts

96 months

Sunday 23rd September 2018
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Mike-tf3n0 said:
The interior was a bit plasticky unfortunately, not quite up to Porsche standards.
I remember feeling that at the time, but in retrospect I rather like French interior design of the period. OP, can we see some images of the interior? Great car!

Trollied

279 posts

134 months

Sunday 23rd September 2018
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A thread that I'll be defintley following!
Any pics of the interior ? biggrin

alpgta

Original Poster:

81 posts

150 months

Sunday 23rd September 2018
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Trollied said:
A thread that I'll be defintley following!
Any pics of the interior ? biggrin
Ok so here's an interior pic. I replaced the seats a number of years back with these - black leather to match the rest of the interior but a totally different (generic - non Renault) type. Reason for that was really that the original seat springs had sagged through general wear and tear of 20 something years and 180K+ miles of use. They look great and have bigger and better bolsters, but they don't quite fit as well and aren't as comfy as the original Renault spec ones which are very thin, waspish and clever in design in that the actually sit slightly under the lip of the central tunnel.

Door cards are tan leather - I bought them from a friend who was breaking one. Bit dirty but came up well with some Jiff and look at least a little bit Ferrari. Tan and black interior works for an F355 so why not an Alpine right?

Speakers and stereo are obviously not standard. Old Renault paper cones had long been replaced when I bought it and the 80's hifi that is standard in the GTA looks great but most have died by now.

Carpets were re-trimmed by me a couple of years ago. Again Renault carpet was a sort of blue deep pile type. Age makes them fade to a green stained kind of colour and the deep pile just goes shaggy. So carpet is now a thin charcoal 4-way stretch stuff, all glued to the tub and then with mats on top. There's not a lot of exposed carpet anyway as most is covered by the mats so works well.

At the same time I did the engine cover in the same fabric - clever design there by Renault as the engine cover has a very fine wire mesh bonded to the surface (under the fabric) that's then earthed via two straps to the chassis. This acts as a Faraday cage to reduce radio interference from the engine as it obviously doesn't have a bonnet in the normal sense that a front engined car would have.

Oh and steering wheel is a later A610 version - simply as I prefer the shape.


Spinakerr

1,164 posts

144 months

Sunday 23rd September 2018
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Fantastic machine, 23 years and 123k is outstanding too. Glad to hear it's getting a full rebuild, and any pictures of the work involved, plus upgrades that the owners club and trusted workshops have come up with in 30 years would be stupendous to see.


BigMon

4,156 posts

128 months

Sunday 23rd September 2018
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Fabulous car and what a great story. Thanks for posting it.

I really like how you've just used it as ' a car' rather than it being a garage queen and much kudos to you for giving it a well deserved refresh.

MJK 24

5,648 posts

235 months

Sunday 23rd September 2018
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I think I saw this machine in motion on the M25 earlier this year.

Is it F reg and quite loud?

alpgta

Original Poster:

81 posts

150 months

Sunday 23rd September 2018
quotequote all
giveitfish said:
They’re both critically acclaimed yet slow-selling plastic panelled 2+2 sports/GT cars using v6 engines from family saloon cars smile

The performance and power figures of the last A610 and my N/A Evora are also surprisingly close from what I’ve just read on Wikipedia. There’s a definite kinship!

I also suffer from 4x4 lights but not as badly as my Elise did, that really was dwarfed by everything. Sadly parts supply is another commonality, it’s just taken 3 weeks to get drop links and bushes for mine and the car is still in productions FFS.

Have you kept your car fairly original or is it more of a resto-mod now? I guess with such a long standing owners club there are various improvements and upgrades people have implemented over the years?
Yes indeed PRV V6 from effectively a Renault 25 turbo - they differ a little (sump etc), but essentially much the same. It's an underrated engine in my view.


I guess you'd call it resto-mod. Obviously lots of work over the years when I used it as a daily, but all that was pretty much standard with the exception of upgrade to the exhaust (stainless clone of a Devil system) and the Azev alloys. Only reason again for changing the alloys was that the correct 255 section 15 inch tyres went out of production for a while. There's a 225 option, but I took the chance to change the sizes to something similar to the Le Mans - so 17 inch rear, 16 inch front. Much better choice of tyres, but having said that even these sizes are getting less and less popular as manufacturers see them as very small these days.


Within the club there are a fair few now with differing upgrades. 3litre turbo and 3 litre twin turbos, plus changes to the existing 2.5 engines and even a LS3 V8...

alpgta

Original Poster:

81 posts

150 months

Sunday 23rd September 2018
quotequote all
MJK 24 said:
I think I saw this machine in motion on the M25 earlier this year.

Is it F reg and quite loud?
Could have been, but there is definitely a louder F reg out there that I know of running twin turbos. :-)

alpgta

Original Poster:

81 posts

150 months

Sunday 23rd September 2018
quotequote all
Spinakerr said:
Fantastic machine, 23 years and 123k is outstanding too. Glad to hear it's getting a full rebuild, and any pictures of the work involved, plus upgrades that the owners club and trusted workshops have come up with in 30 years would be stupendous to see.
Well truth be told it's probably in excess of 200K miles hard to say. Most have suffered a bit with speedo issues so all of a sudden the speedo will just drop out and then not work for a while. Mine's been cleaned, lubed and now works well but I probably lost 10K miles at least over the years.


One of those things in the club that we all spent ages trying to find an answer for, but only now do we really seem to have cracked it and we're seeing it less and less (albeit less cars around to see the issue with!)

Gary C

12,315 posts

178 months

Sunday 23rd September 2018
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Mike-tf3n0 said:
Back in the mid 80s I was running Renault's long gone showroom near Covent Garden, because of that and also because of my competition background I had responsibility for the sales of the GTA in Central London. I have very fond memories of these cars, lovely handling, decent performance and comfortable inside. The interior was a bit plasticky unfortunately, not quite up to Porsche standards but the thing that really deadened sales in the UK was the fact that Renault insisted it was badged as a Renault. Had it been badged as an Alpine I remain convinced it would have been a resounding commercial success. OP, I still have a few original and unissued brochures so if you would like one to go with the car PM me and I'll pop one in the post.
Interior must have been terrible to be worse than my carrera smile.

Switches appear to have been thrown at the 1960's dashboard, the headlight washer switch isnt even on straight, and the electric mirror select switch is hidden on the underside of the dash ! The variable wiper speed is just a potentiometer mounted at random and operates totally independent to the stalk operated switch (and the blades of the wiper hang over the curve of the screen in the park position.

The heater controls are almost undecipherable some on the dash and one on the floor, and don't actually do much.

I love it smile

Watchman

6,391 posts

244 months

Sunday 23rd September 2018
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One of my favourite car shapes ever. Looks so right from any angle.

What sort of power can be extracted these days from the V6 motor without spoiling the car?