1968 Renault 16 TS
Named European Car of the Year for 1966, the Renault 16 arrived as one of the first true five-door hatchbacks in volume production anywhere (a practical, spacious family car with a two-box body and a rear hatch that made it genuinely useful in a way that conventional sedans weren’t).
The TS variant, introduced for the 1968 model year, added a 1,565cc aluminum inline-four with a crossflow cylinder head, producing 83 horsepower and capable of pushing the car to around 105 mph (a meaningful step up from the base 1,470cc engine’s approximately 55 horsepower). A four-speed manual gearbox and front disc brakes were standard on the TS.
The TS was the performance-oriented entry in the 16 lineup through the mid-1970s, distinguished by a full instrument panel including a tachometer.
The asymmetric wheelbase (different lengths on the left and right sides due to the rear torsion bar suspension layout) is one of the model’s more unusual engineering details, a quirk it shared with the smaller R4.
The R16 remained in production through 1980, with more than 1.8 million built in total. Right-hand-drive survivors in any specification are uncommon.
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