MORE Weekend Quickies

1972 Alfa Romeo Montreal - A little while ago I wrote a post about an Alfa Romeo Montreal. The car was part of an estate sale and appeared to be in good, but not great condition. It sold for $24,100.00. I hope the buyer knew more about this car than the eBay listing showed, because that's a lot of money for a Montreal in unknown condition.

If you missed out on that one, you can buy this one for a mere $5900.00 more.

This is a claimed 2 owner car, with just 19,000 miles on it.

This one seemes to be in a lot better shape than the one that recently sold on eBay and may be a much better deal in the long run.

Located in Walnut Creek, CA, click here to see this car.

1983 Renault LeCar (R5) - I mentioned in an earlier post that I once had a girlfriend who bought one of these cars brand new. It was identical to this one (Hers did battle with a Ford Granada and lost. Big time.) I drove it often. It was a really fun car to drive.

This is a low mileage (61,000 miles) car. It appears to be in very, very nice condition. It has the very desirable cloth sunroof. The asking price, $2100.00, is very reasonable.

1983 was the last year Renault exported the LeCar to the US. In typical Renault fashion , it was the best year for the LeCar. (Renault had a habit of getting the cars "right" just before discontinuing them.)

Located in Florham Park, NJ, click here to see the Craigslist listing.

1987 Volkswagen Quantum Syncro Wagon - Think of this car as an Audi 4000 without all the luxury features. In Synchro form, the Quantum was only available as a station wagon, a body style Audi didn't offer on the 4000.

The Quantum Syncro uses the same 2.2-liter, 115-hp five-cylinder engine and five-speed manual transmission (no automatic was available) found in the 4000S Quattro. The 4WD system is off-the-shelf Audi as well. The only mechanical departure made by VW was its choice of rear suspension. Rather than use the 4000S Quattro's struts and lower control arms, the VW engineers opted for semi-trailing arms.

This was not a hugely popular car in the US. Very few are still around. This one is interesting because it is a base car, with no power windows, sunroof, power locks, etc. It appears to be in very good mechanical condition, but can use some minor body work.

If your looking for something different with AWD, this may be a car for you.

Located in Worthington, OH, click here to see the Craigslist listing.

1969 Renault R16 - When I first moved out on my own I rented an apartment from a woman who drove one of these. When my car got stolen she let me drive it for a few days while I found another car. It had a manual transmission with the shifter mounted on the steering column. To this day it's the only car I've ever driven with that kind of set up. I don't remember much else about the car.

These cars were very popular in Europe in their day, but never sold well in the US. This has to be one of the few surviving R16s in North America.

Other than those mandated by US law, Renault made very few changes to their cars when exporting them to the US. That was one of the big reasons Renault had such a tough time selling cars here, especially in the 60s and early 70s. This car is as close as you'll get to a true 1960s / 1970s middle class European driving experience without importing a car directly from Europe.

This car appears to need a lot of work and it won't be pretty even when it's restored. But, if you want an extremley unique car, one that may get more attention at a car show than many supercars, this would be a great choice.

Located in Cuttler Bay, FL, click here to see the Craigslist listing for this car.

Click here to find the "Renault 16 Site".