head lights

[ROWDYRENAULT]

I was just looking at some pictures of the porsche 962 and the Bentley Le Manns car. To my eye its evident that whomever designed the GTR has spent some time looking at the 962. Not a bad thing really. That said, I was wondering has anyone ever contemplated exchanging the 20 or 25 lamps in the GTR for one neatly installed 7 inch head lamp? Yea I know the new stuff has better optics etc etc but would a single lamp system done correctly be more fitting to the rest of the style of the car? Any thoughts? Lee

[Storer]

Early Ultima's used to have large lights I think.

Most of us want to go smaller rather than larger Lee!

Paul

[chucknorris]

Yes back in the day one of the earlier models had a single (possibly around 7") headlight, they then changed to a 3 light cluster before moving on to what we have now. If you look up the history section of the factory website you will see examples there and may help you decide if that's the look for you.
I have to say in my view the current layout is far better looking and probably far more effective for doing the job of lighting the road ahead.

[DHGTR]

Think the GTW has gone single lamp + a couple of others .........Pete you there to confirm?

[V8Dom]

GTW has different headlight shape due to Steve Smith front end being completely different.

Dom

[ROWDYRENAULT]

Chuck: the suggestion to look through the historical section of the Ultima factory's web site was really interesting. I do like the look of the single lights. Hey guys I also own a Renault R5 Turbo and I like it too, so theres no hope for my taste in cars! Anyway the site on the web was interesting I had always imangined that Ted and Richard had hired a design guy to do the design work. As you look at the web site it looks as though the factory started with there own idea and worked it until it looked the way theu wanted it. Within the last year Jay Mays and Freeman Thomas names you should regonise from Ford and The Chevy design guys from Chevy's advanced design facility here in Irvine Ca. have all taken really hard looks at the car. There are some friends in that crowd, all of them have been very complementry about the design of the car. In fact the comment was made by Freeman Thomas that the wheel to wheel opening proportions where very well done and that the car has no bad angles. Very high praise from some of the top car design people in te world. Would the factory like to comment on thier deign process any further? Lee

[chucknorris]

Lee, i feel i also need to get a dirty little secret off my chest...your choice in cars lies along similar lines to me... I was at one time the proud owner of a Renault 5 turbo (1989 model i think) which was then replaced with the earlier R5 Gordini Turbo (circa 1984) and if I had been able to afford it at the time, that would have been changed to a R5 Turbo 2 which was offered to me for around £15,000 for an 8 year old car back in 1992 ( dates are rough as the memory isn't as good as it used to be )
Pete

[ROWDYRENAULT]

Pete there are actualy several of us in the forum that own or have owned Renault R5 Turbo's including Harry who owned 1 of 20 Maxi 5s. I am sure that a goverment study could be commisioned in either England or the U.S. that would study this subset of humanity and come up with a cause factor like we where not hugged by our mum's or moms which ever the case might be. That oought to be good for at least $1,000000 worth of grant money. Lee

[Fat Albert]

I had a mate with an R5 Gordini Turbo, it couldn't accelerate or brake in a straight line...scared teh bejeeezus out of me!

[V8 Vum]

Hmmmm.... and I used to service them at Renault!
We used to call them the "Molotov Cocktail" for obvious reasons ...and they did - alarmingly!

[chucknorris]

I used to love my gordini, it was the only hot hatch on the market that didn't come with sports seats, it had arm chairs that were so comfy, the monty python Spanish inquisition would have been well jealous of them.