UK’s rarest cars: the 1979 Renault 18 TL, one of only 26 left

A car does not have to be exotic or expensive to make such an impact that a former owner will devote months and years to finding it. Renault may have deliberately intended the 18 to be efficient and innocuous looking, but Richard Birchenough regretted selling his so much that he went to great lengths to repurchase his 1979 Renault 18 TL.

The 18 debuted at the 1978 Geneva Motor Show and would serve as the eventual heir to the long-established 12. Buyers had a choice of 1.4-litre and 1.6-litre power plants, and Autocar thought it brought “functional style to the ordinary family car”. Meanwhile, devotees of the Renault 16 hatchback muttered that the 18 was “too conformist by half”.

British sales commenced in January 1979, with a stunningly over-the-top Joss Ackland-voiced television commercial. The Telegraph reported: “With the arrival of the conventional but attractive, diversified and competitively-priced 18 range, Renault UK believes it now has the ideal weapon for making a breakthrough into the business market.”

In fact, Renault was so confident of the 18’s appeal to fleet buyers that it believed it would account for 23,000 out of the year’s projected UK sales figures of 83,000. After Ford launched the Fiesta in 1976, Renault perceived that resistance to front-wheel-drive from company car buyers was weakening. The 18TL would rival the Cortina L Mk. IV as a transport for sales representatives nationwide, with promises of “elegance and style”.

In addition, the TL boasted desirable “special features” such as hazard warning lights, an illuminated front ashtray and a cigarette lighter. Velour fabric upholstery, a map-reading lamp and a clock were the province of the more expensive TS, which Renault predicted would be the best-seller.

Such limited standard equipment was on par with a Cortina L, although the optional vinyl upholstery on Richard Birchenough’s Renault makes it look even more spartan.

This paper found the 18 “attractive and workmanlike”, and at £3,313, the TL was over £100 cheaper than the equivalent Ford in a 1.3-litre four-door guise. The Renault also cost less than the Vauxhall Cavalier 1300L and looked a good deal more up to the minute than the £3,163 Morris Marina 1300L.

The range expanded to include an estate and, by 1980, a very desirable Turbo. The last of 2,028,964 18s left the French factory in 1989, three years after Renault launched the replacement 21, although production continued in Uruguay until 1994.

British sales declined after 1980, at which point the 18 was one of the country’s 10 best-selling cars. Fleet buyers were still wary of “foreign cars”, and the Ford Sierra and Vauxhall Cavalier were formidable competition. Only 26 Renault 18s are believed to remain on the road today, and only two are the TL version according to the car database howmanyleft.co.uk.

Birchenough is a long-time Renault devotee. He says: “Although my first two cars were both 14s, my third car was what I’d always wanted – a 1979 R18TL, and I always class that as my first proper Renault!”

He first saw BWA 42 T advertised on the Renault Classic Car Club website back in 2003. After a viewing and much haggling about the price, the vendor “eventually gave in, and I bought it in May 2004 and put it away in the garage”.

However, just before the 2020 Covid lockdown, “I stupidly sold the thing! When it was collected, I actually went back into the house as I couldn’t bear to see or hear it leave. Quite what possessed me to do that, I do not know.” Shortly afterwards, the 18 resided in Gloucester, and Birchenough recalls: “In 2023, its owner messaged me to say that the Renault was in his father’s garage, and he was about to sell the house as sadly he had passed away.”

Naturally, Birchenough immediately went to see it and, in his words “bought it straight back there and then”. He plans “when the weather improves to add two new front wings and a pair of driveshafts and enjoys the simplicity of the 1,397cc Renault 18”. As well as, to quote the 1979 advertisement, appreciating a car “that looks like no other Renault”.