front-wheel drive hatchbacks of its size to be produced in Europe, but within four years of its launch it was facing fierce competition from a growing number of similar products from rival manufacturers, particularly the Ford Escort MK3, Opel Kadett (Vauxhall Astra in the UK), Fiat Ritmo/Strada and Talbot Horizon. It was joined in the Renault range by the award-winning Renault 9 in 1981, the car which spawned the Renault 14's direct successor (the Renault 11) two years later. "The Pear" Sales of the 14 were hampered by an advertising campaign that compared it to the shape of a pear in order to hammer home the benefits of the advanced packaging with plenty of room for passengers and luggage. A preview at the Pompidou Centre in Paris as a bare bodyshell also did little to win customers. The car would later gain a reputation for premature body corrosion, which resulted in the 14 being dubbed the "rotten pear" by the motoring press. In France, "La poire" (literally "the pear", but also slang for "gullible") still refers to the 14. However, the best-selling Renault 5 also had a reputation for premature body corrosion, but the stronger advertising of the R5 helped boost its sales and resulted in it being a sales hit. The car also had a reputation for being difficult to start in damp conditions. The placement of the temperature gauge on the transmission tunnel behind the gear-lever, rather than on the instrument panel where it was directly in the driver's field of view, led to incidents of engine damage if the engine overheated and the driver failed to notice. Relaunch For 1980, Renault attempted to improve sales by relaunching the car with improved equipment levels and a minor facelift that included, most obviously from the outside, repositioned front indicators and reworked front fenders. This proved insufficient, and production ended in 1983 with precisely 993,193 units sold over a period of just under seven years. Initial production was 325 cars per day, which had been scheduled to increase to 700 in 1977 and to nearly 1,000 in 1978. This never materialised, as sales peaked very early in the R14's life. Sales in the domestic French market did improve somewhat with the redesign. The R14 is now a rare sight on the roads of Europe, even in its native France where they tended to last longer due to easy parts availability