Rare Rides: Soar Like an Eagle With the 1988 Renault Medallion

The Rare Rides series has featured a few Renaults from the Eighties and Nineties previously, and even one sporty coupe which shared a showroom with today’s Rare Rides subject. It’s the family-friendly Renault Medallion, in comfortable grey wagon guise. Let’s take a look.

The Medallion started its life out in France as the Renault 21. Excluding the North American market, it went on sale around the globe in 1986. Designed to replace the rather dated and 1970s Renault 18, the family sedan was an instant hit. Around that same time, the product offerings at North American AMC/Jeep/Renault dealers was looking a bit thin. But Renault executives had a plan. Ready the Medallion!

Original Giugiaro styling was reworked, and safety features added, to comply with American regulations. The cars were largely finished in Maubeuge, France, and then fully completed when they reached port in the United States. It was on domestic shores where trim level options were added.

All Medallion models used a 2.2-liter inline-four engine (103 hp), from the executive Renault 25 sedan. Transmission options included a five-speed manual or three-speed automatic. An early adopter of the transverse engine layout, Renault saved space with the configuration in its smaller cars.

For its North American launch in 1987, the Medallion replaced the Renault 18 like in other markets. It also filled the void left by the midsize AMC Concord, which had its last year in 1983. One of three offerings sent over from Renault, the Medallion joined the compact Alliance linked in the headline paragraph, and the full-sized and luxurious Premier sedan.

The Medallion was available in sedan or wagon formats, the latter offering seven-passenger accommodation via a front-facing third row seat. An update in 1988 was mostly of the legal variety, as the Eagle brand entered the fray and replaced the quirky and offbeat (to Americans) Renault name. This transition to Eagle was not all at once — Renault badges stayed on the Medallion through the 1988 model year.

1989 was the end of the line for Medallion. The Eagle badge was now displayed proudly at the front, with “imported for Eagle” badges at the rear. If all went well with Medallion, Chrysler’s plan was to discontinue the sedan version and replace it with a true Eagle, in the form of the four-wheel drive wagon variant available in other markets. Poor sales put an end to this idea, and thus to hopes for another four-wheel drive wagon from the brand of the noble bird.

Today’s Rare Ride was listed a little while back on the Seattle Craigslist. In pretty clean condition, the wagon racked up an impressive 192,000 miles in its life. It was offered for just $1,500 American dollars.

[Images: seller]