Shed Of The Week: Renault 5 Monaco
A French fancy of the very rarest kind lopes onto Shed's radar
Yellow foglights? Instant cool
Eighteen years after Renault finally called time on the Five, are we mad in thinking that its styling might be coming back into vogue, a bit like Shed's old Ben Sherman button-down shirts? Well, why would it not, given that its lines were tweaked by none other than Marcello Gandini, the man responsible for the Stratos, Miura and Countach?
This Monaco special edition looks pretty sharp in bootlace brown with jodhpur-cream leather and those cool swirly alloys. The suit carrier bag in the boot tells you that the Monaco was aimed at chic Eighties gadabouts who spent their silly, butterfly lives flitting from one Parisian handbag shop to another. Now, thanks to the generosity of a Somerset-based PH advertiser, you can join them for just £750.
Not a Turbo, still pretty quick though
Available in 82hp, 95hp or (as in this GTX/Monaco version) 90hp outputs, the 1,721cc F-type lump (also used in the Volvo 340) is not the revviest engine in the world, but the fun is in the torque and the Five's light weight. You'd be surprised how biddable 90hp can be in a package weighing under 850kg. The 1985 gen-two 5 GT Turbo used its 115hp to knock out the 0-60 sprint in 7.5 secs, so something in the mid-9s for the multipoint-injected 1.7 is far from mad in terms of acceleration claims.
Yes Connolly leather!
There are some other bits needing fettling, like the exhaust, but the beauty of old cars is that maintenance costs will not kill you: Shed easily found a front exhaust on tinternet for under £60. Rough running could be down to really simple stuff like the distributor or rotor arm, or just flaky connections. Rust is something you'll not escape, but this car looks basically solid and good for a few more years yet. Blown door and window seals, leaky rads and non-alternating alternators are all standard old car fare.
Not perfect but surely worth saving
Any doubts about the cool value of this car are instantly dispelled by the presence of the yellow fog lights so beloved by Francophile car buffs. Even Mrs Shed is casting a covetous glance in the direction of this lovable old relic. She quite likes the car, too, badum-tish etc.
For sale is our Renault 5 1.7 Monaco. There are only 13 of these currently taxed and on the road according to howmanyleft . com making it a very rare site on the road.
The Monaco was a special edition made between 1988 and 1991 and was designed to be the luxury version of the R5. It came in a choice of two colours, all of which came with the Connolly Leather interior, completely with suit carrier bag underneath the rear parcel shelf. It was powered by the same 1.7 engine that was fitted to the sporty GTX model and could send the car to 62mph in 9.4 seconds.
This one is a 1988 'F' registration with only 45,000 miles - this is believed genuine with MOTs dating back to 2006 when it had done 26k miles. There have been absolutely NO advisories on the MOT's for the last 9 years!
It currently has MOT until 4th January 2014.
Nippy 1.7 engine
Leather seats
Power Steering
Electric windows (although driver's side currently not working)
Central Locking
Alloy Wheels
New spark plugs recently fitted.
I will be honest and say that it ideally needs a couple of things doing to tidy it up. The exhaust is currently blowing slightly and will need some attention. There are a couple of scrapes etc to the paintwork as to be expected for the age and the paint on the bottom plastic to the bootlid has started to peel. There are also a couple of surface rust patches to the boot lid and also front wing - nothing to worry about. There is also a slight misfire to the engine, so could do with a tune up - this could be also be because of the exhaust and the fact that it has not been used for a couple of months.
There have recently been a couple of Monaco's listed on ebay for way over £1200 so I feel that this is a fair price considering the rarity - it can only increase in value with there being so few left on the road!
Practical Classics did an article recently about the Baccara models. Even the Baccara Clio was very well specced with plenty of toys and full leather.
Love the colour combination - I'm weird I like brown cars.
I bet it'll fly as well only 850kg, 90hp and a decent amount of torque - my 106 Quicksilver was 50kg heavier and had 75bhp & 80 ft/lb.
I'm glad its in Somerset and not the north - looks quiet tempting at that price.
We took the 5 everywhere, even to the south of France on holiday once. I'd happily have another one, trouble is that they've all be Max Powered or are original and thus very strong money (way more than shed budget).
The n/a ones do nothing for me. Although the suprememe beigeness of that interior is quite something to behold.
It's amazing what a halo model will do for the image of a car though - 5s and 206s are immune from criticism because of the GTTurbo and GTI, but if this had been a K10 Micra......
PS. Like!
On a serious note, I thought this generation of Renault 5 was great looking in it's day and to my eyes it still looks good and somehow quite Audi-y with its [dons black polo-neck jumper and brogues] linearity and Bauhaus-ish effect [puts skanky shell suit back on]. Nice car, good shed, I likes. Sheds in the latter part of the year have been pretty good!
every weekend the local youth from the surrounding area would nick a car and dump it in the near by field, usually old astras the like. I'd walk the dog down there on a saturday morning and always have a good look round the cars as i found it interesting. I remember one time there was one of these left in the car park, door a jar, ignition lights still on. It sat there for a couple of days pretty much untouched (i assume all the locals thought it was someones car and they were not far away), then they realized and it fell apart over a few more days and was finally torched
I was really upset as i'd have loved to have owned it
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