I came across this interesting car which looked either abandoned, stolen or both. After some investigation, it turns out it is a Renault 9 GTS “convertible”. And it gets used for a rather unusual purpose.
No cabriolet version of the Renault 9 was ever built according to the factory,especially a four door version, so this obviously must have been a European “custom-chopped” variant. I know in the US there were Alliance convertibles like this one.
Located in Zürich Switzerland at my local car wash – the car features: no soft top, half-eaten rear seats, snorkel and fully-accessible ignition wires!. Apparently this car is used for “Shower Parties” (cheeky name). You can rent it out (for only about 50 USD) with your friends and go through the car wash and get totally soaked. Who said the Swiss were no fun? Check out the video here:
The interior does look rather clean.
Do the electrics and instruments like being washed regularly?
So how would you take a ride though a car wash in it?
Hope it’s a brushless car wash; otherwise say goodbye to the beehive.
Just when I think we have run out of stupid ways to entertain ourselves.
Some enterprising soul needs to try this with a party limo. What is fun for two in a Renault has to be a regular riot for 6 or 8 topless limo. Because 6 or 8 in a limo are almost never sober.
Maybe this car was in the European version of the movie: Airplane,Trains&Automobiles.
At the car wash
Workin’ at the car wash
Come on and sing it with me
(Car wash)
At the car wash!
Ridin’ through the car wash!
Brushes swingin’ at me!
Ow! Ow! Ow!
Fill up (with water)
and you don’t have to pay
At the car wash
Since I have finally found a pile of my old car pix, and this Renault twigged a memory or two, I can attest to the specific level of craziness that this represents. Now, having spent my years driving and restoring all sorts of things, and most represented an almost fanatic level of attention to detail that restorations are at times won’t to, the fact that I strayed down other, more anti social paths once or, in this case twice, I thought a good balance of insanity to keep folks off balance.
The first was a GF’s car (now wife!), a ’70 Hornet sedan, complete with 232 six and auto, with welded doors, and a barrage of (popular at the time) period must haves. Conti kit, fender skirts, running boards, fins, shaker hood scoop Mercedes grille etc. I was friendly with the local insurance agent, who kindly re-registered it as a four door convertible, despite not having a legitimate category of such in the computer. No matter, it kept the police off my case. Beware what kind of madness ensues with access to cutting torches and welders. This was in the mid to late ’80s.
Note the ’80s hair! And yes, it was a hoot!
And the second was a slightly darker and more sinister tone, and a sad end to one of my favourite cars of that era that I owned, that being a ’77 Plymouth Fury Ex-RCMP Vancouver City cruiser. I LOVED this car, and was despite only having a 318, went like the devil, and was rather nimble, and dead nuts reliable, despite the abuse it took in my hands and before mine I’m sure. Until, however, a buddy decided to take matters into his own hands and start smashing the body one day and start making it into a sort of convertible, but stopped short, as you can see. It trashed the car, and as you can imagine, only lasted a few months before the police asked me to get it safety inspected.
That was it.
Sigh, I still wish I had the car, unmolested of course. Please don’t ask if those are beer cans screwed to the fenders, they are of course!
Sad to think that this one is the ONLY photo of my Fury, dammit!
This one’s worthy of the legendary Top Gear “challenges”
Don’t you mean ’70 “Horney” sedan! LOL
Ah, yes, but I thought it would be fun to see who actually clicked the photo for a better look, at the “ahem” details. What you don’t see is the ’59 ersatz taillights, the rear spoiler, the Conny kit and the “piece of resistance “( this is bc French, don’t you know), the centre high mounted stop light fashioned from a school exit sign and re-lettered to say “WHOA”. As centre stop lamps were just out then, I couldn’t resist!
EPIC. You’re my new 80’s high school hero, right up there with OC & Stiggs. I’d bet a Benjamin that you were a big fan of National Lampoon because god knows I was.
https://youtu.be/5JdXg5C7Fmc?t=1434
On retrospect, I’m still not sure which part of the whole shaggy dog tale was really surprising, the fact that I did this, or the fact that my wife actually married me despite it! ( It was her old car after all, although it doesn’t speak well of her thoughts on driving it as it was before the “conversion”)
I chalk it up having owned a Renault 5 earlier, and I feel things were slightly flung askew thereafter.
Renault 9/Alliance Cutaway version…
The video reminds me of going through the car wash wasted with my buddies while in high school, best $1.49 trip we ever took. Windows up of course!
That sounds only a bit more fun than taking a golden shower 😀
I wonder if hot wax is optional?
I’d do it. I bet it’s a lot more fun on a summer day instead of a water park that’ll give you barnacles in your arm pits. Sounds like the Roadkill episode where they took a Datsun mini truck without any glass through one.
Finally. Someone found a way for an Alliance to make money instead of just cost you money.
Sounds like a good way to end up in the hospital.
Only thing I can think of that’s worse is those guys that grab onto the brushes before it starts up, and see how long they can hold on for.
Haha I am in Australia but I saw this car ( and checked it out thoroughly because we don’t have them here )at the car wash when I was in Zurich a couple of weeks ago!!
This Renault demonstrates the exception to the economic rule that an after market top chop can not increase the value of a car.
James Bond changed its Renault 11 hatchback sibling into a two-wheeled convertible during the car chase in Paris in “A View to a Kill”.
I’d wanted to do that to our Topaz, but we gave it away to someone who actually used it.
Maybe our Caravan when we’re done? Fun for 7 in the car wash..
My sister’s friend took a ’69 Mustang convertible (white over blue) through a car wash and it got stuck. The spinning brush busted through the convertible roof and traumatized the heck out of young Ginny. Her father reportedly chiseled a settlement out of the car wash.