"Without courage, you will always lose"

In Martinique, my adventures were not yet finished. After speaking for a while that night by the shed with the Fiats , the Patrick and I made arrangements to meet up again. He said he wanted to show me one more car he thought I might really like. 

He did not disappoint at all.

For starters, I never saw anything like it in my life. But, I knew the stripe - that iconic Renault offset race stripe. I was in the presence of another legend. He smiled and told me that his was Renault Gordini r8, which he had spent the better part of two and half years restoring to factory conditions. It was well worth the effort.   

This car is a lot more interesting than it seems. It looks like a regular sedan, but it's basically a road going rally car. The car's engine is located in the back. It is also rear wheel drive but it still has 4 doors. This layout gives great traction during acceleration but to offset this, the car actually had 2 gas tanks - one in the back and a second in the front that was larger. This, along with the weight of the driver keeps the front wheels on the road and give the traction necessary for cornering.

The heart of this machine is a 1.3 liter engine, which makes about 100 hp, and 86 lb-ft of torque. It is mounted longitudinally in the engine bay. I admired the amount of time he spent caring and repairing this car. What really caught my attention were small things like that tiny bulb in the engine bay or the heat wrap on the exhaust manifold. The latter has a dual purpose of keeping the temps down while adding a great aesthetic within the engine bay. All of these makes these classic cars pretty awesome.   

The car only weighs 850 kg. Which means it can take off pretty fast despite its small engine. I don't think I can stress enough how much of a difference weight makes in a car. 

What makes this car so special though, is it's rally pedigree. It's a car driven not just in rally, but driven by rally drivers on a daily basis. I had the privilege of sitting in the passenger seat for an evening drive. It's so well balanced, we have to think back to the era when things like traction control and auto braking systems didn't exist, when this machine spoke to its driver through the steering wheel. It was a very visceral driving experience.  

“Without courage, you will always lose.”

— Patrick

He told me that he's been driving rally for many years and his experience has taught him that, "without courage, you will always lose". No matter how fast your car may be on paper, unless you have the courage to drive it to the limit, you can't win.

I believe that was the idea behind this car.  

- Alex, until next time, Happy Motoring.

I found a Shed in France

I traveled to Martinique late 2016 around September time, it has been a long time since I was there about 10 years, so I wasn't sure what to expect when I arrived. It's vastly different car wise compared to Barbados where I come from, almost no Japanese cars were there,mostly European cars and the odd Japanese car there came from the US market because of the prevalent use of left hand drive so even those looked different. Highways filled with Fiats, Renaults, Peugeots and Citroëns were the norm.

I really wondered what car culture was like over there, I saw a few cars some "hella flush" others just slight cosmetic modifications but nothing major, I guess I was looking at the wrong generation.

One morning during breakfast my uncle was showing me some cars that he loved from back in the day. I asked him if any were still around, I haven't seen many interesting cars since I got here, I was beginning to get a little worried about how things were shaping up, and then he just casually said yeah, up the hill there's some. “What do you mean up the hill? “ He just said my friend has a few , we can go look this afternoon, I was a bit apprehensive, I expected to see some old cars lying around, but I had no idea what I was in for. That evening we took a stroll up the hill, me with my camera in hand to a shed.

We exchanged greetings and he opened the shed for me, and sitting there were two gems, first one I noticed was covered by a sheet, but I immediately knew what it was, 1966 Fiat Abarth 1000 TC Corsa

This was one of my favorite cars from classic rally and to see one up close in person was unreal, he kept it unchanged from the factory cosmetically, and mechanically.

A quick breakdown on the specs of this car, the engine is about 982 cc with a single overhead cam along with dual carburetors it makes about 112 HP. The engine is situated in the rear of the car and the car is rear wheel drive, it weighs about 580 kg. Classic European solution to speed, take as much weight out of the car as you can. With a decent power to weight ratio it makes itself a fun car to drive around small roads with.

Classic European solution to speed, take as much weight out of the car as you can. With a decent power to weight ratio it makes itself a fun car to drive around small roads with.

The other car in the shed was another Fiat, a Fiat X1-9 designed by Bertone. It has a mid-engine rear wheel drive layout. Its 1.5 liter engine outputs about 85 hp and it weighs in at 914 kg.  It was still in the process of being restored when I came in and saw it

He had one more car to show me, but I'll save that for another post.

Coming soon, until then, enjoy motoring - Alex