You Need This: Renault GTA, an uncommon French Porsche rival

I've lusted after either a GTA or an A610 for years and years and years. I would have one right now if I didn't live in California.

This one will bring big money being the rare A610 transitional Le Mans model but you can find early turbos in good driver shape for sub-$20k.

They look really cool as race cars, too.

The guy living two doors down from my mother in Munich had one--it was white with the flares and good looking factory wheels if I recall correctly.  This was the 1980's and I had never seen one before and the image melted into my brain due to its supreme cool factor.  If a person was willing to own a rarity like one of these, I imagine it could be almost be a DD or at least a good weekend car.  Renault is still around and possibly parts are still available.  Is it just me or do I see a Chevy Monza resemblance?  I also see Australian Ford Falcon in the design, almost a Mad Max (ala a French Mad Maximilian, oui?) Note that these are not large cars and probably somewhat similar in size to the Porsche 911 at the time.  However, this is from my late 1980's memory.  If you fully remember the 1980's, you weren't there   But right hand drive?  Ouch, must have been sold to the Brits or something; I remember these being left hand drive...

In reply to DavyZ :

It's worth noting that these GTAs/A610s evolved from the A310 design, which predated the Monza by four years (first released in 1971).

I was quite surprised to see this one years ago in Austin.

In reply to pointofdeparture :

Now that I think of it, the second photo looked just like the car I saw, only in white.  I like the wheels, everything.  Such a cool car and thanks for posting that information and photos :)

I saw one in person at M1 Cars and Coffee last weekend.  It was leaving so I didn't get an up close view but it was fantasticly 80s from the outside!

In reply to Coniglio Rampante :

That was actually for sale at one of the small dealers on Burnet for months right before covid. It was a cool car. I went and looked at it but old and French kinda scared me. 

The really crazy thing is that these were very, very close to being sold here at AMC dealerships. Can you imagine?

They had a federalized version ready to go, advertisements were circulating, magazines were driving the US-spec car...and then French anarchists put some lead ballast into Renault's CEO of the time, which was the end of the AMC-Renault story.

But oh, what could have been.

Duncan Imports has had this one on their website for quite a while: https://www.duncanimports.com/used/Renault/1989-Renault-Alpine-5e4225bf0a0e0ae85f1750cfee6b0996.htm

Not that I'm keeping track or anything.

FWIW, these are very well-supported in the UK and have a strong enthusiast network there, so there's a good English-speaking community to help make ownership less painful than it could otherwise be.