Junkyard Find: 1985 Renault Encore
While the US government decided Chrysler was too big to fail and bailed out the company with loan guarantees in 1979, American Motors was judged just the right size to fail and had to get bailed out by the French government. This led right to the weird history of the Renault Alliance, which included a Wisconsin-ized Renault 11 hatchback called the Encore. The Encore wasn’t a huge seller in North America and the car tended to deteriorate quickly under American conditions, so today’s Junkyard Find is a rare one.
Can you see yourself in, or maybe as an Encore?
Driverless, stretchy Encores bend lysergically about the nation’s mountain roads!
This car spent at least part of its life being towed behind a giant RV.
There’s no telling how many of these miles took place under the Encore’s own power.
23-channel CBs had been obsolete for quite a few years before this car was built, so this Surveyor rig was an antique even in 1985.
January 10, 1985 was a fine day in Kenosha.
Kenosha or not, this HVAC control panel has a suspiciously foreign look about it.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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When Chrysler purchased AMC (in whose factories the AMC/Renault Alliance--hence the name 'Alliance'--was built) it acquired the liability for the little French CSO (Car Shaped Object). And since there were so many of these derelicts recalled, but never fixed, Chrysler created an incentive program to encourage owners to get them to the dealers. The heater cores were located interior of the firewall and would burst boiling coolant on the drivers leg often rendering a car accident (following the 2nd degree burn). And since most of these CSO's were also a POS, Chrysler found for just a little more cash they could convince the owner to give up their flimsy little explosive liability issue and maybe sell them a new Neon or something.
Two experiences: One was a lady at a former church who was sitting in the passenger seat of their '84 Alliance when the heater core blew its top. She was showered from knees to feet in coolant, and spent several months in the hospital and rehab. Don't know what her ultimate outcome was or if she and her husband were able to recover any damages. Second was when I was a passenger in my buddy's '86 (I think) Alliance after having had dinner on a bone-chillingly cold night. As he was making a left turn (at a light, in the left lane of two), the door flew open!! (The latch had frozen!) If I hadn't been wearing a seat belt, I would have been deposited right onto the roadway, likely under the wheels of whatever happened to be next to us!! He replaced, IIRC, a clutch, both CV joints, and the HVAC control panel (which cost a pretty penny)! I think that car nickeled-and-dimed him enough that he decided to trade up to a fairly decent Mazda 323; there was no big problem for which he junked it.