Unsung heroes: Eagle Premier

This month the unsung heroes series returns to the USA with an especially bizarre choice that non-American readers will probably never have heard of and even Americans are likely to have forgotten. The Eagle Premier is a product of the 1980s, a dark time in US automotive history that created some frankly terrible cars, and if remembered at all is often cited as a perfect example of these with its unreliability and dull-as-ditchwater styling - a site called TheStreet.com even declared it the worst car of all time. I feel that is completely unfair: while the Premier may seem pretty boring it was actually very competent and quite innovative by American standards and I can think of cars that are far, far worse. Read on for the fascinating story behind this Franco-American crossbreed and how it should have shaken up the US motor industry. 

The perfect combination of American and European? It looks a bit like an Audi if you squint
(Image: allpar.com)

More Bobmobiles

Work on the Renault 6 continues at a steady pace and there will be an update soon. In the meantime, an envelope arrived a few weeks ago from Barry, who had been sorting Bob's photos and found some not just of our Renault but of various other cars he owned over the years. Looking at what he drove provides an interesting insight into his character: he seems to have been a Ford man originally before getting into Renaults, then towards the end of his life he had a couple of Vauxhalls. Even though he never married and spent his whole life living alone so he didn't really need two cars, there were times he owned more than one, and of course the R6 sat unused in the garage for more than 20 years while other cars came and went.

Retro Review: Ford Simulator

Although I work in the IT industry I've never really been one for games. I'd describe myself as a very casual gamer who maybe spends a couple of hours a month gaming, and I'm an impatient sort who wants to make quick progress so I tend to stick to simple fast-paced games. As a car enthusiast, naturally it is driving games that appeal most to me and nowadays there is no shortage of ultra-realistic games and simulators to suit all tastes. I grew up in the simpler time of the late eighties and early nineties though, and here I look back at a very odd, obscure and crude program (I hesitate to even call it a game) from 30 years ago that played a part in shaping my childhood.

What kind of super-realistic simulation awaits when I press the space bar?

Dream cars: NSU Ro80

You may have noticed a trend among my previous dream cars: they all have V8 engines, and let's be honest, what true petrolhead doesn't love a V8? This one is different though as it has an engine that sounds almost like a rude word and has no cylinders at all in the usual sense. Alas, that very same engine proved to be its Achilles' heel and caused its manufacturer to go bust less than 12 months after winning a well-deserved Car of the Year award.

Yes, today's dream is the NSU Ro80, a car so packed with innovations it was just too advanced for its own good and pushed the small company that made it over the brink into extinction just a decade after its launch. The Ro80 is celebrating its 50th birthday this year, something you'd find hard to believe looking at its fresh modern styling and the technology underneath, and I have long been among its admirers as it's just so radical and different from what anyone else was making at the time.

Would you believe this is a 50-year old car?
(By Spurzem - Lothar Spurzem - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8042301)

Magnum opus

The Renault Magnum in showland

If I was to ask you to name a typical British fairground lorry, chances are you'd say the classic duo of ERF and Foden, although with those marques gone for over a decade, nowadays Volvo, Scania and DAF are all making considerable inroads into showland at their expense. One manufacturer you probably wouldn't think of is Renault, and there are only a handful of this company's products to be found on the fairs and circuses of Britain.

The Renault Magnum however is one of my personal favourite types as it looks like nothing else on the road with its enormous boxy flat-floored cab and styling that must have been quite space-age at launch in 1991. My love for the Magnum no doubt comes from living in an area where my local fairs are frequently graced by at least one example, so this piece focuses on the Magnums I have photographed on the travelling scene in recent years.

A trio of fairground Magnums in one place, a very rare sight in this country