One Family From New – Michael Wrigley’s Renault 20 Ts

“She is a 1978 four-speed TS. The five-speed came out May 1979, much to the chagrin of my father who bought her new”, remarks Michael Wrigley of his utterly magnificent one family Renault 20TS:

She is a ‘happy memories’ car because she was bought in Guernsey, where she had very very little use unless it was a “trip”, to the mainland to see family, on holiday to Europe, on birthdays and so on., Fso from age eight until mid-teens when we got in that car, we were off somewhere fun.

The 20’s narrative begins in 1975. That year Renault launched the 30TS their first large front-wheel-drive car powered by a 2.7-litre V6 engine. The more Spartan 20TL powered by the Renault 16’s 1,647cc four-cylinder engine followed at the end of 1975 followed by the 20TS in July of 1977.  Here was a car for “discerning motorists” - one with “special qualities and style to match your own”.

Power for the 20TS was from 1,995cc SOHC light-alloy engine “Douvrin” engine subsequently used in the Peugeot 505 and the Citroën CX Athena, and the top speed was 104mph. The 20TS offered almost the same degree of comfort as the 30TS and at £4,725, it was excellent value for money. “Whatever the distance and whatever the speed, you will certainly travel in style,” claimed Renault GB. 

In other words, the 20TS was ideal executive transport for the sort of family who delighted in their top-of-range fondue set and the finest Soda Stream available to humanity. This was Acacia Avenue’s interpretation of La Dolce Vita for the late 1970s – a colour television set, a box of Rowntree Mackintosh’s Week-End Chocolates in the sideboard and on the driveway, a car fitted with electric front windows.

Renault GB believed the 20TS would appeal to the ‘AB’ social group - well-heeled drivers who might otherwise have considered the Princess 2200 HLS or the Rover 2300 SD1. They also thought that 52% of UK sales would be to the company car market but this was a formidable challenge in an era when the company car of choice for management was the Ford Granada Mk. II. 

However, in 1978 the Renault became the inaugural “Car of Year” for What Car magazine - “To our minds, it is a much better buy than its V6 stablemate, the 30 TS which costs £1,100 more”. When Car tested the 20TS opposite the Audi 100 Avant 5S and the Saab 900 GLS they concluded the Renault was “the car by which its opponents here, as well as many others, must be judged”. 

The 25 replaced the 20/30 in 1975 and Michael’s TS is a very rare surviving example. Mr. Wrigley Snr was a bank manager in Guernsey, and Michael still owns a copy of The Observer’s Book of Automobiles in which he listed the alternatives to the 20TS considered by his father: “The other choices were 16TX (the previous one was a TL) or Volvo 244DL”.  

Another car under consideration was the Lancia Beta but Mr. Wrigley Snr was eliminated it as it wasn’t a hatchback.  “Thank goodness, as it is one of the few cars that rusted faster than a 1970s Renault!” He decided on a Sand Metallic 20TS with an optional sliding roof, and it gained a ‘Y’ registration suffix when the Wrigleys relocated from The Channel Islands to the UK. One of Michael’s favourite photos dates from circa 1985: a roadside lunch “somewhere in Germany on the way back from Freiburg”.

By 1990 a 25 supplanted the 20TS in the Wrigley fleet and the 1978 Renault eventually became the car Michael “learned to drive in. She was mine from around the last year at university. The best aspect is the ride; it’s like they’ve remade all the roads”.  Indeed, the Wrigley family are evidently Renault devotees:

Before the 20 there was a 16. Mum had an 8 and a 10, Dad’s Mum had a couple of 12s, and a 9, and my sister had a 5 Mk. I. After the 20 they bought a 25, then after ten years that was replaced in 2000 with a Laguna 1 that they had until 2017 or maybe 2018 when they bought a Scenic.

Today Michael owns “an Espace Mk. I and an Espace Mk. 4 plus a number of other largely eccentric old cars”.

In recent years he has found that with the 20TS “the public probably don’t really care on the whole but motoring enthusiasts recognise and appreciate the love that I have for her and the hard work that has gone into her”.

But connoisseurs appreciate the Renault that is “so obviously from another era in gold with brown velour”.

And who could resist a car where the backrest for the rear seat can literally be suspended from the grab handles?

With thanks to Michael Wrigley for his time and permission to use the images in this blog..