1981 Renault R5 (Le Car)
The R5 fit squarely into the econo-box paradigm, but it was really much more than that. For starters it had fully independent suspension with torsion bars rather than springs. It handled like a sports car, and except for a higher center of gravity I would say that out-performed my MG. It's strongest suit was the way it handled rough roads. Even on dirt roads with big bumps and deep potholes, it could travel fast and remain very nimble. It shared the same ass-backwards front wheel drive configuration that my other French cars had. Shifting was even more squirrelly with this car than the R12 (but nothing surpasses the VW van).
The R5 was the most "ordinary" car I'd driven to date, but I was very happy with it. It served as my daily transportation when I landed a full-time job in Syracuse, and proved to be perfectly reliable on my frequent road trips. No muss, no fuss. Just a good, little car.
That's not to say that it was entirely uneventful, though. Having the same, ass-backwards front-mid-engine design as the Citroen and R12, the shift linkage was imprecise to say the least. One night coming back from the bars with a couple friends, we stopped at a grocery store for snacks. When we came back out, the car was gone. We called the police to report it stolen. When they arrived they said, "By any chace could your car be the one we saw in the ditch on the way in?" It turns out the loosey-goosey linkage made me think it was in gear when it was not, and it rolled clear across the parking lot and into the gully.
There was another time I was out for a drive with Brad on Point Peninsula in the middle of Winter, just for something to do. I had decided we'd gone far enough and went to make a u-turn. This was on a stretch of land between Chaumont Bay and the open waters of Lake Ontario. There was snow everywhere. What I didn't realize was that when the snow plow went by, the outrigger made it look like the shoulder was wide and flat, when in fact there was another gully hiding underneath the smooth surface of the snow. I put a front wheel right in the ditch, and we were stuck. In the middle of nowhere. And Brad had not bothered to bring any cold-weather gear because we were just going for a casual drive. I had another Incredible Hulk moment where I pushed the whole front end of the car up and out of the ditch while Brad floored it in reverse. I mustered up every ounce of strength I had, and absolutely did not let up until the car was back on the level again. Since that day I've had a deep-seeded paranoia of every roadside shoulder when there's any snow cover at all.
Other little things started to go wrong with it too. One of them was the radiator fan. You would think that I would have learned my lesson with the R12, but I hadn't. Rather than getting it fixed immediately, I sat on it for a while, trying not to let it overheat too bad. I did have the problem fixed, and continued driving it just fine, but one day I noticed some tell-tale gray goop on the oil dipstick. I knew this meant that I'd cooked the head gasket, and that coolant was leaking into the engine oil. By this time Brad was no longer in the area, and I didn't think he'd be inclined to come to the rescue anyway. As much as I liked this car, I was in the mood for something new, and eventually replaced it.
My apartment house was on a busy street. I put a "For Sale" sign on the R5, and parked it on the edge of the driveway where it could be clearly seen by passers-by. Unfortunately with the bad reputation the car had gained, and the general lack of appreciation for French cars among the American automotive public, I don't recall getting a single inquiry. When I moved out of that apartment, the landlord said I could leave it behind and he'd do "whatever" with it.