ah, so we’re lying today, are we?
Dies Irae #1, 1978
Sandhurst Louisianno RT360 review
“In the time of the oil crisis, are American cars still worth buying?”
“This large blue cruise liner looks straight out of a 1960’s America - but believe it or not, it’s actually brand new.”
When one thinks of modern American cars one may think of crappy little Acers or Goblins, poorly-built thirsty cars that lack in power, comfort and quality, which is why you may just look at the Louisianno with distaste, believing that you’ve seen it all before. However, what we find out today may show us Europeans that yes, you can buy American in the modern age. Let’s have a look shall we?
The first thing you’ll probably notice about the Louisianno is just how big it is. At an enormous 5.09 metres long (16.7 foot) it is practically bordering on cruise liner territory, and you’ll have a fine job parking this in your local supermarket car park. Or your driveway. In fact, the only place where the Louisianno seems to fit is on the motorway, which most of the time you’re on only to go somewhere else to park. It all seems to be overcompensation for… something. Maybe having a small penis. I’m not sure. At any rate the Louisianno is absolutely massive, and so you’d presume there’d be plenty of space inside, right? Wrong. Inside there’s about as much space as there is in a nightclub on a friday night a block away from a college. Seriously, if you wanted to take your family up the country for a nice holiday you’d have to cut your children’s legs off to be able for them to fit. Well, either that or you could put them in the boot, which seems to be around the same size as the county of Kent, although it might be a bit difficult explaining to the police why there are two children with no legs in your boot.
So then, as a family car it’s not particularly good. You can’t even order an estate version, so you’re stuck with the lack of room. However, how good is it as some sort of delivery vehicle?
Well, the rear seats can be very easily removed, provided you’ve got a sledgehammer or some sort of saw. And once you do that there is a thin layer of carpet-over-wood that you can easily rip open. After that you have a pretty reasonable amount of room to be able to put stuff such as wooden planks or boxes of food to deliver. However, this is an awful lot of work and seems rather unnecessary when you could just buy a van for half of the price of the Louisianno.
Speaking of, it’s actually surprisingly cheap. Being the high-end “RT360” performance model it costs just £1,495, which may sound amazing… until you realise that it only has 150 horsepower. And it only gets 19 miles per gallon. And it’s incredibly uncomfortable. Seriously, it’s like driving whilst you’re being tortured by some medieval torture device, at least at high speeds. And at low speeds the thing understeers like a bitch, like it’s attempting to drive in the opposite direction to where you turn the wheel. This is of course not helped by the all-round double wishbone setup, tuned to be extremely soft in a very unusual configuration for an American car.
Another thing you might notice about the Louisianno is it’s looks. I’m not saying that they’re bad, and they might look normal on American roads, but here in Europe it looks rather out of place. It rides seemingly weirdly high, not helped by the thin, high profile tyres. The rear end looks like some disgruntled alien and the side of the car looks quite empty. The rear window is obscured by a rather tacky louver that doesn’t seem to actually help with anything at all.
The engine is a 5.9 litre V8 mounted longitudinally under that airfield of a bonnet to a 5-gear manual gearbox, taken from the 1960’s Sandhurst Venturi Roadster, updated to fit in the modern car. Overall this gearbox is surprisingly nice, paired with a new McAlastor clutch developed specifically for the RT360 it makes gear changes smooth and easy to do. It also has new hydraulic power steering developed by Sandhurst themselves, however it does nothing to help with the frakly awful understeer the Louisianno develops.
The interior attempts to make itself appear more expensive and more comfortable than it actually is, with leather reclining seats, hidden wood-lined compartments and a modern 8 Track/AM Radio, however in testing it is no more comfortable of a regular European car.
Ultimately the Sandhurst Louisianno RT360 is not the correct kind of car for Europe. I’m sure it will do very well in America, but the uncomfortable ride paired with the low fuel economy, practicality and outlandish size don’t attribute themselves well to European roads. Would I advise getting one? No. However, don’t think that this car is completely without it’s faults, and if you’re ever in the states for a long time, keep your eyes open for one going cheap, it’ll likely be worth it.
thank you to @stm316 for the car, and apologies for the wait and sort of half-arsed review. my power has been blipping intermittently today, and although i wanted to get a review out i didn’t want to completely fuck up the car.
