The French will rise again

"505Turbeaux" (505turbeaux) 05/11/2015 at 10:32 • Filed to: None

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This is more of an observation I have noticed not only here, but also across other blogs and social media. Even when I started posting here a year and a half ago, rarely was a French car even mentioned on Oppo. But now I see multiple posts per day glorifying them. I see a lot of cars spotted at shows, in traffic - and the reaction is much more favorable. Why do you think this is? There hasn’t been one brought into this country in any significant number in 23 years, and when they left, they were reviled but for a few. There have been more Peugeots LEAVING the country to get shipped to Africa than anything else. Just curious why the shift out there in the car world.

JR1 > 505Turbeaux 05/11/2015 at 10:34

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The whole Hipster culture of owning something unique and interesting I bet has something to do with it. I never really considered them cool until you started posting about them. Now I sometimes search CL for them

505Turbeaux > JR1 05/11/2015 at 10:35

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I did have some young guy with a mustache and a skateboard come give me mad props the other day!

Jcarr > 505Turbeaux 05/11/2015 at 10:35

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They’re really pumping up the construction efforts...

505Turbeaux > Jcarr 05/11/2015 at 10:37

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hahaha nice. Also...

505 - morphine not found > 505Turbeaux 05/11/2015 at 10:43

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I don’t think there are many 504 Coupés doing rally in Greece, so i can say with some certainty, that i had a short forum contact with the guy pictured. He’s on Aussie Frogs, and the car was running the PRV V6 before, but is now using the engine you have in your 505, the injected pushrod (XN6 I think). Not factory of course, but if you want to mod an XN series motor, Aussie Frogs is the place to go.

Also, looking at that pic gets me all hot and bothered. This is what you use an 504 / 505 for.

duurtlang > 505Turbeaux 05/11/2015 at 10:44

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It’s an interesting observation. I personally have been posting French cars on Jalopnik since (scrapes throat) 2009, and I’ve been surrounded by them my whole life. The three French brands had a combined market share of 22.5% of new vehicles here in 2014, roughly. Dacia, which is half-French, had an additional >1%. But that’s a Dutch/European perspective. No idea why the Americans are regaining interest. I do have a few hypothesis though:

Fiat/Alfa. The re-introduction of these brands might’ve reignited interest in other large brands that are not present in the US.

Economy. When I started here the economy was a train wreck. It’s not anymore, so people can realistically lust after cars that are more than mere appliances.

The French themselves. PSA (Peugeot/Citroën) had a malaise era in my opinion. Almost everything they introduced between 2000 and 2010 was shitty, except the C6 and RCZ. They were better before, and they’re doing much better now. I’m ignoring Renault right now, but I never really cared for that brand anyway, but that’s just my personal opinion.

Jobjoris > 505Turbeaux 05/11/2015 at 10:46

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I think it all started with you. And Jonee’s post of his Le Car. Of course.

That 504 coupe even made it to LaLD two weeks ago (shameless self promotion alert!)! It’s so awesome.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > 505Turbeaux 05/11/2015 at 10:49

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It’s cyclical. There was a time long ago when all Oppo paid tribute to Shant, with ShantBait offerings of various Frenchnesses on a weekly basis or even more often. Then Shant was de facto banned by the mysterious and fallible workings of protoKinja, so the fun was taken out of it somewhat.

Cé hé sin > duurtlang 05/11/2015 at 10:53

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Sadly though the C6 and RCZ were commercial failures. The Citroen was only ever made to give French politicians something to be driven around in and the RCZ sold for about two years and then faded away. It’s not going to be replaced.

duurtlang > Cé hé sin 05/11/2015 at 10:56

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I don’t disagree, but they’re among the few cars from the Dark Ages of PSA I’d own.

505Turbeaux > Jobjoris 05/11/2015 at 11:09

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hey, maybe so. I have always been a big proponent of them!

505Turbeaux > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/11/2015 at 11:10

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huh interesting. I remember hearing this a while ago. Of this Shant.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > 505Turbeaux 05/11/2015 at 11:15

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I’m trying to remember Shant’s proper name and can’t, but he was a real mensch. His thing was largely posting pre-80s Citroens of all sorts. After 6.0, I think it was, rolled out, he had repeat login issues and kept trying new burners and accounts to keep posting. Eventually, before this version of Oppo even went live (while commenting was still inline), he more or less gave up and drifted away. If I’m not mistaken, Shant himself was a Frenchman, possibly of mixed ethnicity, and his current gig is as a motor journalist on another website. Somebody else, maybe Ontop or Gamecat or somebody should remember better.

505Turbeaux > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/11/2015 at 11:25

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I wish I had been around earlier sometimes. Sort of

duurtlang > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/11/2015 at 11:28

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He had a few posts on Hooniverse, this was his first . I don’t believe he was French at all actually, he certainly lived in North America.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > 505Turbeaux 05/11/2015 at 11:30

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For me, the best period on Oppo was for about a month after I joined, though that’s clearly viewed through rose colored lenses. Then a new revision came up, Shant, ThirdPedalGirl, and an assortment of others started having issues, and about that time Oppo got promoted on the front page and drew in new people. One of them being LightningZone, who started off with the stupid image macro politics shit nearly day one, though it was months later before I Hate American Cars flamed out and entered Oppo in the persona of Super Kiwi Zorro for the first time...

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/11/2015 at 11:31

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Came here to say that. A couple of months ago there were three opponauts with 944s so they got posted about regularly, and the same with S30 Zs before that. I think if someone’s got one (or really likes a certain type of car), then they post more so everyone else thinks ‘I remember those, they are damn cool’ and posts more about them.

Oh, and it’s Shant Jaltorassian. He’s still about on the google+ ark that floated off when 6.0 hit the shelves. He’s Armenian if memory serves me right :)

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > duurtlang 05/11/2015 at 11:33

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I remembered his name was unusual for North America, but it does look like I wasn’t right nationality-wise - I’d forgotten he was in the US. I want to say that there was some connection to France somewhere beyond the French car obsession, but I don’t have any idea what it would have been.

E. Julius > 505Turbeaux 05/11/2015 at 11:33

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Maybe it has something to do with the youngest crop of enthusiasts having all but no experience with them. I didn’t even know French cars existed until I saw them in video games, and until I went to Europe I don’t think I had ever seen one in real life. They’re exotic to people who don’t remember them tooling around the states, especially stuff like the Le Car.

505Turbeaux > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/11/2015 at 11:35

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seems to have mellowed. Kinja is still constantly a half finished platform in perpetuity so there will always be issues that will frustrate people and drive them away. I didn’t know about all kiwi’s issues till after he was out of here. Truth be told if it wasn’t for the people on here I would have dabbled for a month and been gone

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires 05/11/2015 at 11:35

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There was of course also a wave of FoST posts when they came out, and a wave of BRZ/FT-86/FRS posts when they came out, and if we want to call a single poster and a small peak of interest a trend, there was the i8 and BatteryTenderUnnecessary.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > E. Julius 05/11/2015 at 11:39

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A young friend of mine... I think he’s around 19? has recently acquired an Alliance as his first car. It’s looking very promising as a maintenance and repair learning experience, and a trip on the Jalop side.

E. Julius > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/11/2015 at 11:41

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That sounds awesome. I’d love to have a French car for a bit, or at least drive one. Pretty hard to come across when you live in Michigan though. Rust and the big three are not too friendly to them : /

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > E. Julius 05/11/2015 at 11:44

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Because a four-door Alliance tips the scales at right at a ton, taking it out of gear and pushing it around is very easy - no interlocks, either. He was parked behind my brother at one point, and rather than getting him to move it, the cars mysteriously changed places. Mysteriously.

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > duurtlang 05/11/2015 at 11:49

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I think you’re right with the French malaise era in the mid-‘00s. They had some real engineering and styling mojo right up until the 90s. Hydropneumatic space-ship Citroens, solid as a rock Peugeots, F1-tie-in Renaults.

You had the Peugeot 404, 504, 505, 405 Mi16s, 406 Coupe, 106 Rallye, 106 GTi, Citroen Traction Avant, DS, SM, CX, BX, 2CV, Renault Clio Williams, Clio RS172, Clio V6, Safrane Biturbo, Alpine A310, Alpine A610, 5 Turbo and more.

Then 2005 hit and you had fish-mouthed Peugeots that used the same engines from the late 90s but gained ~200kg in weight and Citroens that were not much more than Peugeots with different suits. The only one that held the line a little was Renault, and that’s only due to their RS hatchbacks.

Fingers crossed they get back in the swing of things. The DS line is definitely promising, and I’ve driven a 208 GTi at Brands Hatch and that was a pretty chuckable little thing :)

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/11/2015 at 11:59

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There we go, I knew there was one more recent than the 944s. I will credit 505 with a large proportion of the French revival on here though :)

I remember IHAC and Super Kiwi Zorro. I could swear SKZ was two different people/had split-personality disorder. One was an absolute dick and the other was actually fairly reasonable. Odd person.

Personally, I liked the time when Gimmi was posting regular photo-dumps, but that was probably just well timed as I was just getting properly into cars at that point and he posted some great stuff :)

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > 505Turbeaux 05/11/2015 at 12:08

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I don’t know, I think now’s a good time to be on oppo. You missed all the dance party gif-storms that rendered oppo unusable for a day at a time, and the truly, utterly godawful iterations of kinja before we got to what we have now (which actually functions pretty well). You used to go through hours of not being able to save posts, compiling a whole post and then it disappearing when you clicked ‘save’, days where it would suddenly decide it was a random date a few months ago and default to that day.

There’s a reason for all these ‘kinja’d’ memes. It really was dreadful.

Oh, and oppo’s always been pretty amicable compared to most places on the internet, but it’s been a long time since we’ve had a shitstorm of anger and hatred. There’s been a few, and I’d definitely say that oppo’s the most amicable it’s ever been since I’ve been here :)

The only thing I’d say oppo is missing at the moment is the ability to sticky a post at the top for theme days. That way everyone can contribute in there and it doesn’t clutter up the rest of oppo. Oh, and people don’t have to sift through the rest of oppo to find pics.

RallyWrench > 505Turbeaux 05/11/2015 at 13:04

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It’s all your fault. Although in fairness, I haven’t been on Oppo too long, so I can probably share a little of the blame.

pip bip - choose Corrour > 505Turbeaux 05/12/2015 at 05:36

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no French car?

what about Smart?