I bought one of these back in the day. It was about a year old when I got it and I kept it for about a year.
Introduced in the US in 1981, the 18i was meant to be Renault's first "world car". It was supposed to compete with the lower end Volvos and Audis, along with the VW Jetta. In some ways it did, but in many ways it did not.
The 18i was really nothing more than a rebodied R12. That wasn't a bad thing. The R12 had a great chassis that was still modern a decade after its introduction.
The R12 had a funky, "only-the-French-can-build-a-car-that-looks-like-this" body. The 18i's body was more modern, more universally acceptable, but, arguably, somewhat bland. Still, in its day, it wasn't a bad looking car.The interior is where the 18i stood out. I would still rate the seats as the best I've ever sat in (Renault used the same seats in the Fuego - another car I owned). They were very supportive and unbelievably comfortable. Mine were leather, but cloth was more common. The dashboard, taken from the Fuego, was well laid out and the gauges were easy to read. Most of the interior had a nice, quality look and feel to it. Few, if any, cars in this price range had an interior as nice as the 18i's.
The car's suspension characteristics were typically French; lots of body roll, great ride, very good handling. (The handling was let down only by its tiny 13" wheels / tires. Had I kept the car longer I would have replaced them with later Fuego or Sportwagon 14" wheels / tires.)
The drivetrain is what let this car down, big time. The 1600cc engine just ran out of breath too early. I was constantly shifting gears, just to to keep the car moving. Shifting gears is a ton of fun if you're doing it to exceed the speed limit or take a turn at the limit, but not much fun when you're doing it just to maintain reasonable momentum.
I mentioned that "most" of the interior had a quality feel to it. There were some exceptions. The tach and speedometer needles warped, as did the center air vents. Like the later Fuego I owned, the 18i never spent a minute on the back of a flatbed, but it had a lot of little annoying problems. Wheel bearings, exhaust systems, alternators, heater valves and more, all went bad during the year or so I owned the car. It had less then 40K on it when I got rid of it. (Another issue with the 18i was the automatic transmission. It was junk. My sedan was a 5 speed, but I found how bad the automatics were when I later bought an 18i station wagon. - See below.)In typical Renault fashion (at least here in the US), they got the car "right" just before discontinuing it. The last 18i available in the US was a station wagon, renamed the "Sportwagon" (They dropped the sedan and the 18i name altogether after 1983. The Sportwagon was offered through 1986.) It had a powerful 2.2 liter engine and 14" wheels and tires. According to a friend who owned one for quite awhile, reliability was greatly improved, too. Had the first cars been built like the last ones, the 18i may very well have been real competition to Volvo, Audi and VW here in the US.
This car looks clean, but it may have lived a hard life. The front end appears to have been replaced, or at least painted. (The color is slightly different and one of the fenders is missing its Renault badge.) The ad has very little text, and what it does have is confusing. The seller writes that the "ceiling is gone", which may mean that it needs a new headliner. I have no idea, as there are no pictures of the interior.
The gold / brown color was common on European cars back the the late '70s and early '80s. (Think about how many Audis, Jaguars, Volvos and even BMWs you've seen in this color.) It's period correct, even if it's not very easy on the eyes.
This car is what it is. It's not very exciting, but it's rare Renault sedan. There are much more interesting Renaults available, but if having a car very, very few people have means a lot to you, this 18i would be tough to beat. (Just don't pay the $2K asking price for it.)
Located in the "Concord / Pleasant Hill / Martinez" area of California, click here to see the Craigslist ad.....
I bought another 18i a few years after getting rid of my first one. I needed a beater and saw an 18i wagon with a bad automatic transmission for sale. The seller wanted $100.00 for it. I bought it. I located another transmission at a local junkyard for $50.00. I installed it, took the car off the lift, fired it up, put it in gear and... nothing happened. The tranny I bought was bad. I returned it to the junkyard, got a refund and called Sutton Motors, a great old Renault / Peugeot dealer in central Massachusetts. They had their own little Peugeot / Renault junkyard and stocked a lot of used parts. I told the parts manager, Paul, that I needed a good used automatic transmission for an 18i. "No such thing", he replied. That's when I learned that all the 18i automatic transmissions were junk. Instead, I bought all the parts needed to turn the car into a 5 speed. There was a lot of work involved in doing that, but I figured it was my only choice. At some point, while splicing a wiring harness, I sliced my hand and had to get 6 or 8 stitches, which set me back a week or so. I eventually finished it and the car ran and drove perfectly.
After all that, I only kept the car for a month or so. I gave it to a friend who needed a car. A few months later he put it on its roof while driving through a snow squall near Rochester, NY. He wasn't hurt, but the car was totaled and I never saw it again. I still have the scar on my hand to remind me of it, though.
