Winner of fastest retreat rally (German border to Paris).
Posted on 10/28/2005 3:29:04 PM PDT by dagnabbit
That is NOT going to sell here. It's the size of a lawn mower. And it's even uglier than the Prius.
Winner of fastest retreat rally (German border to Paris).
Man, that is one sweet ride.
I think they're just arriving now in Canada and get launched in the USA at a show in November, before public sales in the Spring.
So I guess we'll soon see how well Toyota has done their homework regarding the U.S. market. They don't screw up too much, but who knows.
One thing I don't expect is for Toyota to play up the "Made in France" angle much.
Renault Dauphine
"Truly unencumbered by the engineering process."
"At the time, it cost about half the price of a Volkswagen... which was half the price of everything else. How could Renault do this? Simple. It had half as many parts."
"This car topped out at 45 mph. Since the minimum speed on the Florida Turnpike is 40, patrol cars would follow me, waiting for me to hit a hill so they could ticket me."
"From a historical perspective, it's a shame that the French spent their Marshall Plan dollars on automaking."
"A side impact by a bicycle totaled my Dauphine after only one year."
Renault LeCar
"I'm convinced that the body metal for this car was supplied by Reynold's Aluminum."
"Like any French restaurant in America, it was overpriced, noisy, moody, and would put you in mortal danger if you had an accident with anything larger than a croissant."
"Our Le Car couldn't climb a hill fully loaded, so the passengers had to get out and walk up."
"I left it unlocked overnight, and it was finally stolen. The insurance check paid for a textbook."
I had a '73 Renault 12.
Strange little car...
Among its traits was the fact that I had to readjust the timing to suit the weather. I just got out, twisted the distributor until it ran right, then ran it for the rest of the day.
4 passenger, but a trunk that would swallow a Christmas tree (and did!).
Thx...looks like a real kick-@ss mini. I like it!
I lived in a small town and drove it at 12 y/o (on Saturdays). Authorities weren't sure it was a car.
By the way, Toyota has operated in France a good number of years. Not only was the previous version of the Yaris (essentially a hatchback version of the US-market Echo sedan) built there, but I believe a number of other Toyota models are built there, too.
Besides the Charleston, 2CV special editions have included such exotica as the 1980 James Bond version, which had bullet hole stickers and 007 decals to commemorate a movie appearance; the Bamboo (a weird green color scheme); the 1950s Sahara, which had 4 wheel drive; and the 1985 Dolly, with a two-tone lipstick paint job.
I'll stick with my Fremont, CA assembled Corolla.
Yeah. All you have to do is own one...
I had an R-12 station wagon. Strange little car indeed. It could never ever decide which of two idle speeds to stay on for more than 15-20 seconds.
Good plan, I stuck with my Fremont assembled Prizm until it went Tango Uniform at a bit over 225,000 miles.
My step son had one in Costa Rica--there are a lot of them down there. I drove it a couple of times. Roomy enough for 4 adults. Drove like a Toyota; not exciting but likely very reliable. The only 'weird' thing is the instrument panel. It's not really what it seems. You are actually seeing the info projected from down below somewhere--when you look really closely you can see that it is a reflection kind of like in a periscope.
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I hear they only come in white
I guess the center mounted speedometer means you don't ever have to worry about going too fast.
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