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Franglais range expands

24th September 1983
Page 6
Page 6, 24th September 1983 — Franglais range expands
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RENAULT is extending its range of British-built lorries, starting early next year with a premium range 16-tonner which will be launched at the Scottish Motor Show.

The next in a range of 6-Series vehicles with widened Club of Four cabs to be built at Renault's Karrier plant in Dunstable will be the G170, a 16-ton rigid which shares common parts with the 6260 tractive unit built there.

This model is already being built at the Blainville plant in Normandy, and further details of the specification will be announced next month.

It uses a charge-cooled and turbocharged 170bhp engine developed from that used in Renault's J-range and fitted to Mack Midliner lorries built for sale in North America.

Production in Britain starts early next year, and will be followed at a later, as yet unannounced, date by other G-Series vehicles.

The French-made GF1 51, which sold in small numbers in Britain, but which has been type approved, will be withdrawn when the G170 becomes available.

It is being launched at a time when Karrier's Renault/Dodge sates are falling in Britain, with overall market share down from 11.1 to 9.6 per cent of the over3.5 tonne sector in the first eight months of this year.

The company blames a fall in local authority orders for the fall in the British-built Dodge share from 10.1 per cent to nine per cent, although this has been cushioned by healthy business for the 3.5 to 7.5 tonne 50-Series which is set to fill the void created by the demise of Ford's A-Series.

Renault's market share has fallen from 0.9 per cent to 0.7 per cent, with volume falling from 269 to 228 vehicles.

It believes it can arrest this decline by offering a more powerful 16-tanner, as the Dodge Commando 2 is available either with a maximum-power six-cylinder in-line Perkins unit of 148bhp, or with a Perkins VS. It has opted not to re-engineer the Commando to take a Renault engine, and a spokesman said the availability of Dodge and Renault models in this category would bring a better sales figure.

• In the news item on the Dodge dual control system in last week's CM, a zero was omitted from the price. Unfortunately for municipal operators it should have read £1,940.

Tags

Organisations: Club of Four
People: Mack Midliner

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