European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - November 20, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Thursday november 20, 1966 the stars and stripes Pago 13 am s Renault Sta a Driver s car a brochure discussing the personality of the new Renault Sta Mode thai we bad on test recently featured a paragraph that read Renault Sta is a Rar built for the enthusiast and non enthusiast  but in our opinion you can t have i Bath wan and Only the enthusiast will really enjoy owning and driving his new u, Renault Sta from american motors corp. And that s How it should be. The sus pension on the new front wheel drive Sta sports Sedan is about As Good As it can get regardless of Price category and anon enthusiast would never know or appreciate the difference. The 1987 Renault Sta is strictly a sports performance Mode within the Al Liance series and is offered in 2-door Sedan and convertible body designs. We recently had the Sedan on test from am military sales and we found in an extremely interesting car Quick an nimble with the handling and suspension tint class As noted. 11 is a Driver s car and can be pushed genuinely hard through the turns. Although manufactured in the United Stales the Sta is essentially a european automobile from bumper to bumper and is powered by a 2-liter, 4-Cylinder Ren Ault engine the seventh Renault engine introduced onto the . Market in the last tour years. During the developmental stages of the Sta Model am engineers had a Choice of utilizing either Renault s 1.4-liter turbocharged engine or the 2-liter normally aspirated engine the engineers selected the 2-liter unit am says be cause in provides the Superior Low end acceleration to which most . Drivers Are  the 2-liter engine has a single Over head camshaft and electronic fuel injection and turns out 95 horsepower at5,250 rpm redline is 6,000. One reaches the 5,000-rpm Range quickly in All gears. Although am lists the Zero-to-60 Mph Lime at 9.9 seconds our Best Effort resulted in an 11.3 Reading. Our lop Speed figure came to 106 Mph at 5,000 rpm in fifth gear. Dropping to 4500 rpm the iced was 98 Mph and at4,000 the speedometer read 87 Mph. At 60 Mph the Lach read 2,750 rpm. Al Al limes the engine was relatively silent perhaps too much so for a sports Sedan. The close ratio five Speed Gearbox puts the Power onto the Road quickly yet one of the Farmers in the Renault Sta i ports pipe Nam system is lowered ride height. Smoothly and the shifting is Crisp and easy. The pedal arrangement is set up for Heel and toe style driving As it should be on a car of this Lype. Continuing briefly on the technical Side the steering is Power assisted rack and Pinion and is direct and returns a Strong feel for the Road. The brakes Are vented disc at front and Drums at rear and they work quite Well As we discovered in an emergency Stop situation on the autobahn. The sports suspension system inde pendent All around is the Best part of this car and it works with the new Mich Elin sport sgt 195/50 vr15 lires which Are mounted on aluminium wheels. Am says this is the first Lime these tires have been fitted As original equipment on any . Car and we May add that they Are highly effective in both dry and wet conditions. The Sta which seats five has a no nonsense functional Interior with Well placed lighting devices throughout. Eve the roars Are illuminated when the doors Are opened. There Are storage panels at the Bottoms of both doors and the front bucket seats Are placed on pedestals to provide More leg room for Back seat Pas sengers. The Driver front passenger seats quite comfortable ones give Strong lat eral support with their Side bolster pads. One feature we especially liked was the steering wheel a leather wrapped and perfectly shaped one adapted fro Mihe Renault s Turbo which has been raced for years in Europe. Two stalks off the steering column control the lighting Blinker and wiper functions a system we always prefer. Our test car was All Black including bumpers Grille spoilers and everything else. If you Don t want All Black then you can have the Sta in All White All red or All Silver metallic. Am Calls these single color bodies monochromatic mean ing one color or Hue but it s nothing new. This special paint scheme has been used for some Lime now on various cars in Europe and you either like it or Hale it. Our Gas mileage figure came 10 26.2 Miles to the gallon that figure including drives on autobahn in City traffic and on secondary roads. Price for the Sta 2-door Sedan Pur chased in Europe is about �11,000, an appreciably less if purchased for . De livery. The Sta convertible costs about $ 14,000 in Europe and also less for . Delivery. David b. Simpson service manager for am military sales says that seme and warranty work on the Sta models May be performed at both Renault out lets in Germany and at cafes garages making a total of More than 300 service steering wheel from is Turin. Outlets. A German warranty Book is provided along with the regular am War Ranty Simpson  information and details an the Renault Sta Are available Fromam military sales representatives at the cafes new car sales Points on the various bases in Europe. Randy Barnett in the ., four wheel drive Market is booming b Brad Smith United Pras International four wheel drive vehicles once were the Domain of the Macho outdoors Man who needed them to Bounce around the wilderness Hunting Deer or looking for a Good fishing Hole. But Loday the typical 4-by-4 Driver is a suburban housewife taking her kids to school sales of 4-by-4s have exploded in recent years and there seems to be no end in sight. The Industry is going to move More and More toward four wheel Dave says Auto Industry analyst Arvid Kauppi we Haven t seen the end of  trend will continue to Rise. The Only stopper if one is to come will be High Gas  during the past five years sales of Domestic four wheel Dave vehicles tripled reaching More than million in 19b5. In 1981, 18 percent of to total Domestic Light truck sales and 4 percent of All Domestic vehicle sales were four wheel drive. Those figures Rose to 29 percent and 9 percent respectively last year. Not Only arc the sales booming but the Market is changing. Ten years ago people bought 4-by-4s for recreational use Only Ray a for Mike Naughton s Ford acres in suburban Aurora Colo. Now everybody s buying them especially the Middle income families with kids who want two vehicles in one. They use in for recreation and As a town  the percentage of off Road use has become smaller and smaller every year echoes Dean Greb. Director of held sates operations for american motors. That reflects the fact that the product we provide today gives the consumer a greater degree of Security and Comfort. They re All round secure transportation for  Greb said 30 percent of amps new jeep wranglers the 4-by-4 introduced in May to replace the cj7, Are purchased by women. That s up from 11 percent for the ci7 last year. That s a real Opportunity to expand our Market Greb says "1 visualize the wrangler As real Competition Tor specially can like the trans am Camaro and the like a real lifestyle image  Ford s marketing studies show that its Busl Selling 4-by-4, the Bronco ii. Is Seldom used for off Road transportation. Only 3 percent of the buyers said they used the Little Bronco off Road a considerable amount of Lime Tayi Ford analyst Ray Windecker. The percentage is even smaller for the big Bronco. Rise biggest use for the Broncos in the 80 percent Range is simply to drive to work and run errands around town Windecker says. Auto analyst Jouppi thinks three things account for the increased popularity of 4-by-4s lower Gaso line prices a backlash against front wheel drive cars and major improvements in the mechanics of four wheel drive vehicles. The interest in four wheel drive is reciprocal to the Gas Price curve Jouppi says when people feared the Price of Gas would get up to $2 a gallon the fuel Economy of the four wheel drive vehicle worked against Ilas in did against the big can. As prices came Down they opened up an old Market thai was already  most anybody will drive a four wheel drive says Welly Paschke general sales manager for Colo Rado am jeep Renault also in Aurora. The housewife buys them As a second vehicle just to run errands. They feel a lot safer a lot of people will just have them for on Road  More and More four wheel drive vehicles like the Bronco ii Chevrolet Sio Blazer and jeep Cherokee Are replacing the station Wagon in Suburbia. A big reason car analysts maintain is that they have the creature comforts of passenger can plus the Security and Utility of four wheel drive