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Renault R16, can you daily drive a 60 year old classic car?
11K views
Jan 1, 2025
The answer, absolutely! We picked up the grandaddy of hatchbacks, the OG, A Renault 16. I made it my mission to drive this car for Christmas so spent the last week in the workshop late at night, getting it ready for the road. A coolant flush, a new expansion bottle, cleaned the points, set the timing, rebuilt the brakes, a new wheel bearing on the back, fixed a load of wiring issues, wired in an indicator relay (who know's what happened to the old one!) a new set of tires and she was ready...For the open roads. Slowly! Whilst I was waiting to collect this #renault I tried to search Youtube for #RenaultR16 videos and couldn't find much in the UK. Perhaps it's a generational thing and the sort of people who own these aren't making Youtube content? Either way, I'm going to change that. So stay tuned as we turn this rolling resto into the gem it deserves to be.
View Video Transcript
0:01
this is the 2024 Northeast tuning winter
0:05
project car it's a Renault 16 we picked
0:09
this up a few weeks ago from Brian
0:11
Whiteside Renault Legend um I've spent
0:15
the last week trying to get this on the
0:18
road and driveable cuz it was my
0:20
ambition to drive this on Christmas
0:25
[Music]
0:28
day um I achieved that but we've still
0:31
got a few things that we need to do one
0:34
of the issues that this had was the
0:35
indicators weren't working and I had to
0:38
sort all the wiring out behind the
0:39
dashboard cuz that had been sort of
0:41
hashed up and the bulb holders in the
0:43
back were all just gritty and horrible
0:46
and Rusty so I'm going to do a few
0:48
little how-to videos on bits and pieces
0:49
like that and then I'm probably going to
0:50
break them up put them on YouTube when I
0:53
was fixing this yesterday I didn't
0:54
reconnect the speedo drive and I didn't
0:56
reinstall the dash illumination so I've
0:59
just been down to Napa and got some new
1:01
bulbs uh let's do it
1:06
so we are getting somewhere now um
1:09
basically I've thought for a while that
1:12
the stalk the like the control St for
1:16
the indicator and the lights on this is
1:17
dodgy and I've noticed that every time I
1:21
change anything or move anything or get
1:24
involved with anything at all to do with
1:26
wiring under here cuz not going to lie
1:28
it is a little bit of a mess
1:31
um it just is um every time I do
1:35
anything I get very inconsistent results
1:38
so basically like yeah that's perfect
1:41
basically just there everything was
1:43
working everything was all good there
1:44
was no issues at all and then as soon as
1:47
I started putting it back together the
1:50
lights on the dash weren't coming on
1:52
unless you were on Main beam and I was
1:55
like so I've set myself a challenge and
1:58
that is to drive one of my my old cars
2:01
every single day between now and New
2:04
Year so I've been pretty much daily
2:06
driving this Reno 16 apart from last
2:09
night where I took the citen ZX home
2:11
simply because I started it up and it
2:14
was a bit stuttery and I was like that
2:15
needs a run um so yeah basically I've
2:19
been daily driving this bad boy and it's
2:21
mint I love it we tax anot exempt as
2:25
well which was a a large part of my
2:27
decision to drive it cuz I was like I
2:31
don't drive a lot of the older stuff
2:32
that I've got because it will has to be
2:35
taxed um there's a lot of history with
2:37
the Rena 6 as well which I'm going to
2:39
talk to you about so yeah I'm really
2:42
excited about this car I love
2:51
it Renault 16s right what can I tell you
2:55
about Renault
2:56
16s I like researching things I like
3:00
going on YouTube and finding out about
3:01
stuff before I buy things but
3:04
unfortunately there wasn't anything at
3:07
all for this car like everything was in
3:10
Dutch everything was in Dutch everything
3:11
was in French there were no English
3:14
videos on a Renault 16 so I'm going to
3:17
change that
3:18
today the Renault 16 is it was the first
3:22
hatchback um as far as I know it was the
3:25
first hatchback so Renault wanted to
3:27
design something that was going to be
3:30
unique and kind of change the
3:32
market and cars had always been either
3:36
the kind of three box design where you
3:38
you know long Bonnet passenger area boot
3:42
area or you could get like a shooting
3:44
brake kind of thing coach built or
3:46
something like that and Renault wanted
3:49
to build something that was a
3:51
hatchback and this is what they came up
3:53
with so really you could say this is the
3:55
granddaddy of hatchbacks
3:59
so that's quite cool they came out in
4:02
the' 60s I think it was about 1965 these
4:04
came out and they made them for a really
4:07
long time this is a very early GL car so
4:11
it's got the small kind of almost
4:13
teardrop like rear lights which are
4:14
really
4:16
nice they were column change which is a
4:19
bit of a novelty these days but a lot of
4:21
cars in that era were column change the
4:25
plus side of that is you've got a direct
4:27
connection straight to the gearbox and
4:29
the gearbox sits ahead of the engine
4:31
it's actually like a mid-front layout
4:33
the engine sits really far back behind
4:35
the front wheels later on in the video
4:37
I'll show you that in a little bit more
4:39
detail cuz under the bonnet's really
4:40
interesting on
4:42
these they've got a double torsion beam
4:46
rear suspension so one sits in front of
4:48
the other which means that the wheelbase
4:50
is different from left to right so
4:52
that's a very interesting
4:54
feature the ride on them and the
4:56
suspension's really good like they are
5:00
W they are super soft like they got a
5:03
lot of body roll but the grip's really
5:05
good um these just hang on
5:08
forever don't buy a Renault 16 if you
5:11
want to get anywhere quickly um I find
5:14
that this car is really happy uh about
5:17
50 55 mph it I'm just cruising along
5:21
here just tickling a throttle and it's
5:25
lovely brakes you've got to remember
5:27
it's an old car you don't expect The
5:29
Brak to work uh they're non-s Servo
5:31
assisted brakes on this model so you
5:34
have to push the pedal quite hard but
5:36
it's nice cuz there's lots of modulation
5:38
and it stops up good the steering's
5:40
really light which is aided by having
5:43
this absolutely enormous steering wheel
5:46
like it's
5:47
huge the interior design it looks simple
5:51
it looks really simple by today's
5:53
standards but in the ' 60s when you
5:55
compare this to
5:57
like what would it be compared to like a
5:59
Triumph Dolomite or something like that
6:02
it's really stylish and it's really
6:04
nice the other thing you might notice
6:07
whilst we're driving around this car
6:09
doesn't rattle doesn't rattle it doesn't
6:10
shake it doesn't knock it doesn't bang
6:13
and I've got to be honest I'm not sure
6:15
that this is a particularly prime
6:17
example it's just a nice usable
6:19
mechanically up together car but it
6:21
drives really really
6:25
well like I say I've been daily driving
6:27
this I've been getting up and out the
6:28
house at like 6:30 in the morning and
6:30
going for drive to work and stuff in
6:33
this and it has not fed it started on
6:36
the button first time let it warm up for
6:39
a minute with the choke on and then job
6:43
done engine wise these are a 1500 CC
6:48
they're about 55 55 60 horsepower is but
6:52
what's interesting about these is they
6:54
used this engine in the Lotus Europa and
6:58
the early Alpine
7:01
a110s and the Alpine A110 obviously was
7:04
a it was a rally car and it was known
7:06
for how strong and how robust it is and
7:09
I've got to say this engine it's
7:11
impressed me it's easy to work on
7:13
everything's accessible there's loads of
7:14
space around it and parts are still
7:17
cheap and accessible you can still get
7:19
them which is awesome there's a really
7:22
good website called Renault 16 shop and
7:24
they sell everything for
7:27
these because they use this engine in
7:29
the Lotus Europa as well I found online
7:32
um like digital service manuals and
7:33
digital Workshop manuals on the Lotus
7:35
web pages which has been great when I've
7:37
been sat there at night the wiring
7:40
diagrams as well like I'm a Volkswagen
7:43
boy Volkswagen W wiring diagrams are
7:47
absolutely appalling however the wiring
7:50
diagrams for these are really easy to
7:52
read and everything's got like it it's
7:55
all colored properly and it's got like
7:57
terminal points and destinations and and
7:59
from wiring diagrams for these are a
8:03
dream one of the issues with this car is
8:07
the heater fan doesn't work you don't
8:09
need it they've got this ventilation
8:11
flap up here which puts cold air into
8:14
the cabin so like the ventilation on
8:16
this is really good but if you just pull
8:19
these flaps down here you can go from
8:22
demist to getting a really nice through
8:24
Breeze
8:30
R away
8:33
woo so one of the things that I want to
8:37
talk about is dailying old
8:39
cars because when you think of someone
8:42
who's cruising around in something like
8:45
this you like you are going to judge
8:48
them hopefully this video will show you
8:50
not to judge those people if this video
8:53
does Reach people
8:55
who aren't into old cars don't judge
8:58
someone who's driving around in an old
9:00
clunker like this cuz like I'm remember
9:03
the time of my life and I'm cool as out
9:05
I am Mega cool and driving this car is a
9:08
wicked experience that I love more
9:10
people should be into old cars like this
9:14
is I just
9:15
Wicked anyway back to stuff about the
9:18
Rena 6 it is so comfortable these seats
9:22
are absolutely unreal and the other
9:25
thing that Renault spent a lot of time
9:26
working on is the versatility so what
9:29
you can do with the rear seat is you can
9:30
bring it forwards a couple of inches to
9:32
give you more boot space you can lay the
9:35
front seats down flat which they
9:37
humorously called the play ped position
9:39
so you can turn it into like a little
9:41
bed in the back also the rear seat
9:43
pivots so if you want to like turn it
9:45
into a van and you've you know you've
9:47
going to the tip or you've got a long
9:49
like load of wood or something like that
9:51
you can lift the back rest up hang it
9:54
off of the rear grab handles and then
9:56
you can get a full load all the way
9:58
through the car which I think
10:03
Wicked we're going to go and find a nice
10:05
little Country Road we're going to park
10:07
up and I'm going to show you the outside
10:09
of this car in a little bit more
10:18
detail honestly I got no phones no music
10:22
no
10:24
nothing chilling out at a a very
10:26
restricted speed of like up to about
10:28
5050 55 mph couldn't be happier like
10:32
where I live it's National speak limit
10:35
which is 60 and if I can do 55 no one's
10:37
going to kick off about that and the
10:39
rest of it it's all 30 40 mph stuff like
10:41
I've been driving this all over the
10:43
Christmas period I've not had anyone
10:46
annoyed I've not had anyone doing like a
10:48
stupid overtake or whatever and i' like
10:51
everywhere I've gone I've gone to petrol
10:52
stations I've like gone around to me
10:54
in-law's house parked outside of my
10:56
house everywhere I go in there people
10:58
are like
10:59
what's
11:00
that which I think is really cool
11:03
um it's nice it just puts a smile on
11:06
people's face anyway I'm going to turn
11:08
this off and we'll do another little
11:09
video in a minute showing you a little
11:11
bit more detail in out and around the
11:15
car well I've come to a nice little spot
11:17
out in the let me house W key there we
11:20
go I've gone for a lovely drive to a
11:23
nice little spot out in the countryside
11:25
there's no one about beautiful roads the
11:28
sun's a little bit low which is is going
11:29
to mess with me video however let's show
11:32
you a Renault 16 if you're watching this
11:35
you've probably seen one before but for
11:37
the rest of our viewers who have never
11:38
seen a Renault 16 you're going to love
11:40
this it's a really cool
11:42
car this is a Renault
11:45
16 I would say this is like a cross
11:48
between a sa
11:50
99 and a Austin maxi
12:03
this particular car I would probably
12:06
class as like a rolling
12:09
Resto it's by no means the most
12:11
Immaculate car in the world it's had a
12:14
bit of paint it's had a bit of a life
12:16
it's got fiberglass Wings the Scuttle
12:19
panels a little bit
12:22
crusty but
12:25
mechanically this thing drives so well
12:28
and it's got some really cool features
12:30
as well I love these teardrop lights
12:33
they are awesome the fact that you fill
12:35
it up through the back is great look at
12:38
this old Renault
12:40
font it's got a loued rear window you
12:43
can see where it's had a bit of paint in
12:45
its life and there's like Touchin and
12:48
overs spray around the seals but it
12:49
presents itself nicely there's a little
12:51
bit of crust there which we'll get
12:56
sorted the interior on it is now really
12:59
nice apart from the carpets but I'm
13:01
going to get one of those from the Rena
13:02
16
13:04
shop when we bought this car from Brian
13:07
it had a rip in the seat just down there
13:10
and Brian very kindly sorted us out with
13:13
a lovely very nice condition interior
13:15
for it which is very kind of
13:20
him bench seat in the back let me show
13:23
you what these rear seats do cuz this is
13:24
so cool so that's the seat in its normal
13:27
position if you lift it up and Pull It
13:30
forwards hang on it's hard to do this
13:33
one-handed might get me hand in there
13:35
there we go that comes up
13:41
then I cannot do this
13:45
one-handed like oh yeah look how easy
13:47
this is and then I can't do it let's try
13:49
doing it this way hang
13:51
on there we go that
13:54
worked so then the seat comes forwards
13:57
which gives you a little a little bit
13:59
more boot space how cool is that
14:02
speaking of boot space look at the size
14:04
of the thing so obviously this was one
14:06
of the first
14:07
hatchbacks it's bloody
14:10
enormous it's a huge boot proper metal
14:14
parcel shelf love that lvas on the
14:19
back so what you can also do with this
14:22
which I think is
14:24
wicked this seat can pivot oh yeah to
14:29
open the door let me go around and open
14:30
the
14:34
door this seat can pivot all the way up
14:38
and then you use these straps to strap
14:40
it up so you've got a full load
14:43
space I think that is a wicked feature
14:47
considering the age of the car and the
14:49
fact that car manufacturers bang on
14:51
about stuff like that and versatility
14:53
these days I think that's a great
14:55
feature
14:59
the
15:01
interior it's a really nice place to
15:08
be these are all stainless steel and so
15:11
are the bumpers so they never
15:16
perish how cool is
15:21
that that's the best Reno
15:27
logo I shut that door I let my heat
15:33
out to get under the Bonnet you have to
15:37
pinch its
15:41
nose there's the
15:43
engine so you can see just quite how far
15:46
back from the wheels it is really really
15:50
far back gearbox at the front that's the
15:52
gear
15:54
linkage yeah it is what it is very easy
15:59
to work on I've got to fix that that's a
16:01
temporary
16:03
fix whoever did
16:05
this needs shooting this like that
16:09
shouldn't have a badge on the front look
16:10
how much better that looks already just
16:12
with that off yeah the person that did
16:16
that is an
16:21
idiot going to fix that it's also got
16:24
this ventilation flap which is really
16:26
cool so what happens is
16:29
when you pull this lever
16:33
here it lets fresh air
16:38
in I love it I just think it's wicked
16:41
and engine wise it is on the button as
16:44
well fair enough I have done quite a lot
16:46
to this to get it on the button
16:54
however is she
16:57
going let's show you some more cool
16:59
stuff so this is the gear lever here you
17:03
can see there's the pattern so that's
17:05
first second third
17:08
fourth
17:10
reverse
17:13
indicators I fix them lights lights on
17:18
and then that's dipped beam that's main
17:21
beam you pull it up that's parking
17:23
lights and then that's like flash to
17:26
pass
17:31
cool
17:33
huh that's not where I wanted to put
17:37
that so let's go for a drive in a Rena
17:41
16 up a nice little Country
17:44
Road might have to make this a multiple
17:47
point
17:48
turn which I don't mind
18:00
uh another thing I need to do again I'm
18:02
not really that fuss because I know it's
18:03
good because I've like checked it with a
18:05
pressure gauge the oil pressure switch
18:08
needs changing cuz it
18:10
constantly constantly is
18:14
on now that I've driven it for a little
18:16
bit I kind of know what speed to change
18:18
gear at but one of the things that I
18:20
really like about this is it's actually
18:22
got loads of torque and I'll try and
18:24
show you how much torque it's got in a
18:26
minute because we're going to go up a
18:28
pretty big pretty steep hill to get back
18:30
and you can just kind of like put it in
18:32
fourth and it just gets up there oh
18:37
coming nope we're
18:44
good so 100% you can daily Drive old
18:48
stuff like this like if you got a little
18:50
bit of mechanical sympathy you don't
18:52
mind just chilling out you're going to
18:54
get there when you're going to get
18:56
there absolutely it's tax and OT M this
18:59
thing's been really good on fuel the
19:01
fuel gauge is broken as well but I think
19:02
that's just a sticky sender unit but
19:04
because I full tanked it I've now got to
19:06
get it low enough that I can take the
19:08
level out to clean it all up without all
19:10
the petrol coming out
19:13
um but yeah as long as you're kind of
19:16
sensible and chill with these things you
19:17
can absolutely drive them
19:20
daily so my camera decided to die on the
19:23
way back but we did in fact make it back
19:27
we went a little bit further I actually
19:28
went out for about an hour and a half
19:29
just cruising around in it um I'm going
19:32
to be doing a lot more content and
19:34
videos on this Rena 16 simply because
19:37
there's not anything out there and when
19:39
I was looking to to find out stuff about
19:41
the Renault 16 there was nothing it was
19:43
all old stuff um' 60s cars aren't the
19:47
fashion at the moment people aren't into
19:49
them like they used to be it's kind of
19:50
gone more modern to like the'80s and the
19:53
'90s stuff so people aren't necessarily
19:55
out there looking at these 60s cars at
19:57
the moment which means they're a real
19:59
bargain and like they're just Wicked
20:03
they're great that car to get in it and
20:05
drive to work and back absolutely
20:07
perfect go down the beach on the weekend
20:09
whatever we're going to RS later on in
20:11
the year to an like an international
20:13
auto jumble genuinely I've had serious
20:17
thoughts about taking that because I'm
20:19
completely confident that it would get
20:20
me there just maybe a little bit slowly
20:22
so stay tuned because we are going to be
20:24
doing more to this um and there going be
20:27
a lot of content so if you're interested
20:29
in Renault 16s General Old rubbish cars
20:32
that aren't rubbish they're great and
20:34
want to see some more of my weird old
20:35
collection of stuff stay tuned in and uh
20:38
hope you have a good New Year
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