Renault Sandero [ 5 HD Photos ]

The new luxury 2014 upcoming Renault Sandero Big size hatchback have 1.6 liter four cylinder engine produce 85 bhp @ 5500 rpm max power and prices between Rs. 4,50 Lakh to Rs. 6 lakh.

Renault Sandero Car Wallpaper

Renault Sandero Car Wallpaper in REd color back side view

Renault Space

A few different Renault stories have caught my eye this week.

The first comes on the back of my story last week about Ford's new Vignale sub-brand - it seems Renault want their own upmarket label.  They are calling it "Initiale Paris" and although it won't be a sub-brand, it will adorn the classiest versions of their range.  Like Vignale, it was launched at the Frankfurt Motor Show.

It's purple.

 

Autocar, amongst many others, had the story.  Initiale Paris sounds pretentious - but that is probably because I hate the perfume adverts that pollute British television.  I wonder if perfume adverts in France have an English voice saying "Pie and Chips, the new scent from Fred Higginbottom"

 

The second story involves a priest giving the Pope a Renault 4 to potter around Vatican City in. 

The BBC used this photo in their story of a priest after a few brownie points.  Maybe the priest was inspired by my earlier story on that subject.  It's supposedly only 20 years old.  Yes I know that sounds old for a car but I didn't think they were still making Renault 4s in 1993.

 

Searching for a good link for that story of the Pope's newest car did lead me to this picture of Carly Pope.

Apparently, she's a Canadian actress.  But I digress.

 

The final Renault story of the week is this one. 

This handsome chappie is Carlos Ghosn who, according to Wikipedia, is a "French-Lebanese-Brazilian businessman."

 

There is no doubt, however, as to his position as president of Renault-Nissan.

 

He has been telling us, at the Frankfurt Motor Show, that the worst of the recession for the auto-trade is now over.  Hope he doesn't end up looking like an idiot.

 

Not that a French president could ever look an idiot.

Or could he?

Holiday Photos

I've been on my holidays!

 

Did anyone notice that I hadn't posted anything for over two weeks?

 

Why not?

 

Anyway, I went to Gran Canaria.

 

Whilst there I read two books and the September issue of Top Gear Magazine.

 

The two books were "Me Of Little Faith" by Lewis Black which had nothing to do with cars whatsoever and "Back Story" by David Mitchell (the comedy actor/writer not the author).  This had almost nothing to do with cars apart from the revelation that when he tried to learn to drive at the age of 17, his instructor stopped the car and told the young Mitchell how he had seen an alien spacecraft land.

 

David Mitchell never went on to get a licence.

 

I've been meaning to mention Top Gear Magazine for a while now - they "refreshed" it again a couple of months ago.

 

This is a term used by marketing people and Tesco Store managers for moving stuff around.

 

In Tescos this means you can't find anything so I stop going there. The Top Gear Magazine refresh wasn't too bad and they've introduced a couple of new features like "Ask Uncle TopGear" and "James May's Almanac" that are quite amusing.

 

Now for the photos I took while I was there:

A fine example of an elderly Fiat 500 - the original one.  You can really see just how small it is when parked in a car park amongst ordinary vehicles. 

Talking of small, here is a Renault Twizy.  I saw one here in Britain once but it was covered in the car-dealer's logos and travelling in the opposite direction to me so it was a fleeting glimpse.  I actually got to take a peek inside this one.  When I posted on this car a while back I implied that I didn't like it.  Now, having seen one close up, I still think it's horrible. 

Talking of horrible, that is a word I would never use to describe this Volkswagen Kharmann Ghia. 

I might use it to describe the Dacia Logan (or budget brand Renault - I think it's based on an earlier shape Clio but don't hold me to that).  This car is probably quite common-place if you are in Southern or Eastern Europe but they don't sell them here so I took a photo of it. 

Talking of "they don't sell them here so I took a photo of it" - here's a Mark 2 (I think) Ford Mustang.

 

 

...and the weather was nice and I got a bit of a tan.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly...and The Beautiful and the Blobby

All, and when I say "All", I Mean "ALL" of the car press today are going on about the 2013 Geneva Motor Show.  The show opens on Thursday in, of all places, Geneva.

But they've let the press in already.

Very much as I'd love to be there with them, I cannot be for various reasons including work commitments, family commitments, finances, logistics and the fact that I'm not a real journalist.

So I have to pick apart what they are all reporting.

Let's start with the good. That would be The Mitsubishi CE-MiEV.

This is the much-better follow-up to the i-MiEV.  Autocar cover it here.  It is an electric car with better range and recharging times than the i-MiEV but still not as good as the Silex Power Chreos.

 

Most importantly, though, it doesn't look stupid like the i-MiEV - actually, I think it looks a lot like a Prius.  But not as good looking as Mitsubishi's other offering at the show, the GR-HEV:

A futuristic- looking  hybrid pick-up with a one-tonne payload.

 

OK, so that's the "good", evironmentally friendly and all that, now for the "bad".  I don't mean "bad" as in "not good", I mean "bad" in the Michael Jackson way.

 

Now, I don't mean "Michael Jackson way" as in the dodgy allegations that saw him in Court, I mean the "Michael Jackson way" as in the 1987 album he called "Bad".

 

Now that's clarified, I expected the "baddest" car at Geneva to be the McLaren P1 but it seems to have had the headlines taken off it by the Rolls-Royce Wraith. 

Here's one of Autoguide's stories on it. It is described as the most powerful Rolls ever. I'd say it would be a bit of a Bentley-worrier. They claim it's in a different price-bracket but I think it's a lot more attractive and should appeal to the Cheshire set - it's only the suicide-doors that I don't like. It also has a neat headlining inside which looks like a starry sky at night. It has been done before but will give that "out in a cabriolet on a warm Summer's evening" feeling that everyone loves so much.

 

Don't they?

 

Oh well, even so, it does look appealing.

 

Which brings me neatly round to...

 

...THE UGLY!

Not sure what the man in the photo is doing.  That thing is a Toyota i-Road.  It's an electric three-wheeler, two-seater much in the vein of the Renault Twizy.  And the glass doors means it shares a problem with the Twizy in that people will be able to see you driving it.  I've read a few reviews of the Twizy being tested in the UK and each time the reviewer has commented about derogatory remarks being shouted at him.  Now I can't possibly condone such action. 

 

But I can well understand it.

 

Now to "the beautiful".  When I read this article in caradvice.com.au about the ItalDesign Giugiaro Parcour concept, I immediately thought of  the Silex Power Chreos in as much as it is a pretty, computer-generated car:

However, if this is vapour-ware, it is very solid because here are some people having a good, close look at it...

I think it is gorgeous and very reminiscent of the supercars of my childhood in the '70s.

 

That was a time when ItalDesign were doing their only other work that I am aware of - ie, the squaring off of the Morris Marina to produce the Morris Ital:

Also, the peak time for Ford to be producing the Escort.  I keep thinking they've started again because I keep seeing stories about this car at Geneva:

It's the Ford EcoSport - which looks like "Escort" when you're flicking through car stories.  This car looks nothing like an Escort, though. It looks like a tall Ford Kuga - the Ford Kuga it will be replacing as opposed to the bigger "World Car" Ford Kuga that seems to have replaced the outgoing Ford Kuga here in The UK.  Confusing eh?

 

So, in summary, that's the 2013 Geneva Motor Show.  You don't need to go now.

Getting all in a Twizy

Mike Rutherford (No, not the bloke from Genesis) in his column in The Telegraph has written an article seriously praising the electric Renault Twizy.

It costs £7K plus battery-rental which sounds cheap enough.

You can park it sideways like a Smart as in the picture above. But you shouldn't do that because cars don't have bumpers on their sides so parking nudges will result in dents.

Anyway, it isn't a car.

It's a quadricycle.

Like a G-Wiz - and we all know how they crumple in a crash-test.

The biggest problem though is it doesn't have doors.

That means that people would be able to see you driving it.

Anyway, there are cheaper alternatives available...

Was Chris Hughton Sleeping with Mike Ashley's Wife?

No. Mike Ashley is divorced so he doesn't have a wife. So that can't be the explanation for his sudden sacking as Newcastle United manager this week. No, the straightforward answer is that Mike Ashley must be an idiot.

If only everything in sport was nice and straightforward like that.

Take Formula 1 for instance.

For a couple of seasons now, we have two teams sponsored by Red Bull, there's Red Bull and Toro Rosso (which happens to be Italian for "Red Bull") - one uses Renault engines, one uses Ferrari engines. Renault meanwhile had their own team powered by a Renault engine - but then again, they sold their stakes in their team so the Renault team isn't really the Renault team at all, it just had their name and their engine - they also had sponsorship from Lada and a Russian driver - but then again, Renault own a bit of Lada. Meanwhile, Lotus, who are owned by Proton, also rejoined F1 in 2010 using an attractive green livery and a quite unsuccessful car.

Renault and Lotus were both successful during my favourite F1 period from the late '70s into the early '90s with lovely looking cars such as these...It was announced today, though, that Group Lotus has joined F1. Does that mean the existing Lotus team has been renamed?

Does it buggery!

Well, actually it has been renamed to Team Lotus, but that isn't to be confused with Group Lotus who will own the team but also own "Lotus Renault GP" which is what the old Renault-but-not-owned-by-Renault team will be known as..

I think.

So, we'll end up with four Loti (James Hunt invented the word "Loti" as plural of Lotus - I invented the word "Double-decker-bi" as plural of Double-Decker bus), four Red Bulls, two McLarens and two Mercedes, as opposed to two McLaren-Mercedes as we had before 2010, two Ferraris (but at least four Ferrari engines) and Lord knows what other combination of Hispanias, Williams, Saubers and the like.

I think I know which will be the best looking cars on the grid though...

Trapped Wind

Sorry, that should read "Renault Wind".Daft name but the car looks quite good. Top Gear magazine and Fifth Gear online have both recently reviewed this car so here's my two cents.

This is a coupe-cabrio with an electric folding metal roof - quite a clever one at that with the roof flipping backwards and getting protected by a metal cover. With the roof in place, it reminds me a bit of the old Lotus Europa of the 1960s with the top of the door sweeping back to the tail of the car - only this car has the roof and decent-sized boot where the Lotus had an engine.

The main competition seems to be the Vauxhall Tigra but this looks a lot more manly - I would be seen dead in this - unlike the Tigra.

With the roof stowed away, the Mazda MX5 comes into play - that car being rear-wheel drive is probably more fun and more traditionally roadster-ish although I wasn't overly impressed when I drove one - give me a MkII Toyota MR2 any day.

The Wind has been developed by RenaultSport on Clio underpinnings but looks suitably different. Engines are a 1.6 or a 1.2 turbo so plenty powerful enough for the class of car it is.

Just a shame about the name. I guess Volkswagen used up all the good wind/breeze names like Scirocco (Hot desert wind), Golf (Gulf-Stream), Jetta (Jet-Stream) and Passat (Trade Winds). That just left the word "wind" itself (flatulence).