I finally got around to picking my recently purchased A610 from Cambridge. The owner even threw in a couple of jars of home grown honey (to sweeten the deal).
The plan was to trailer the car home however after seeing the car I thought I may as well book the car in for an MOT and drive it straight to my local MOT testing station where my MOT man could give it a thorough poking. This gave the benefit of being able to drive it and see how it goes.
I'm not sure if this was brave or foolish but at least I was driving legally with the MOT booked.
Driving the car at first, it felt like it hadn't moved in a long while but things loosened up after a few miles. I couldn't feel anything wrong with the steering and the brakes had suffered from sticking calipers which soon released after a bit of braking and accelerating which is normal on a drive back North.
On getting to the MOT, I got under the car with the man and we had a good poke around, The subframes front and rear are solid, still with original paint on them, the sills are solid but the outer plastic sill was damaged looking like someone had tried to jack the car by it but will repair easily. Rear of the front wheelarches again solid.
The bad news is the battery tray, this is badly rotted but an easy repair so I'm on with that now. The MOT man gave me a fail for the battery tray saying the battery could drop out and for the damaged outer sill saying it could be an integral part of the structure of the car. I think this is a bit unfair as I don't think it is integral but seeing as I'm going to repair this at the same time as the battery box, I didn't see the point of arguing. I could probably take the car to a more lenient MOT station but I don't see the point. The bits he picked on need fixing.
I told him about the previous fail on the power steering but he couldn't see anything wrong either so this is either an intermitent fault or the previous garage TTP. He said the brakes had probably freed off with driving which were my thoughts too.
I took a gamble on this car without being too concerned over the condition as the plan is to do a complete restoration anyway but it's nice to know that there is nothing too serious.
The plan now is to get the car fully legal and shake the car down before the restoration starts in earnest.
The car was last repainted in 2001 and I could get away with a partial repaint but I want this car to look immaculate. I want it to look every bit the rare exotic supercar it is.
I'm not sure whether to stay with the leather or try to source a velour interior. Either way, I want to renew the front seat foam as it's just too soft for my liking. If I stay with the leather, I'm tempted to move away from the grey which again is not to my liking.
Regarding wheels, I'd like to go for earlier disc wheels. The tyres are quite new so I'll stick with those.
Mechanically, I can't fault the engine, clutch or gearbox. No noises, no leaks. It's a pity to take it all out but again, i want the rear subframe and engine looking clean and nicely painted.
Suspension and brakes feel good but the rear bushes squeek over speed bumps which I believe is common on old A610 and GTA bushes.
The plus points in particular are that the exhaust, clutch and discs have all been done in the last 10K miles. The tryes have about 6mm front and back. The car goes well - very well in fact.
One interesting point is that I've been told that the car was white when new but was repainted by Renault for some reason. Surely the paint code would say it is white then - how do I check this?
The only bad bit of bodywork is some cracked paint on the roof and some big stone chips on the front. It also has a few pimples on the drivers door but nothing I'm too worried about.
If the car was white, I'm not sire if I should revert to white or maybe change to another A610 colour. I do like the red as well as the grey that they never did a RHD version of. I love yellow too.
Also 610 needs new TPS at £200, 21 rear calipers seized 
