Friday 12th December 2014

Shed Of The Week: Renault 5 Monaco

A French fancy of the very rarest kind lopes onto Shed's radar

---

Cette semaine, nous regardons une example classique de l'automobile Francaise, le Renault Five. And cette is le end de la chat foreign, vous will be pleased to ecouter.

Yellow foglights? Instant cool

The first modern-era Renault 5 was launched in 1972. Our Shed is an example of the second-gen '86-on 'Super Cinq'. Its very particular and very Gallic shape became deeply unfashionable almost overnight in 1990 when the Clio was released, but there were still enough diehards and non-First World markets around for there to be a six-year model overlap.

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

As any PHer knows, the Five drive of choice is any of the various Garrett turbocharged variants - first generation Gordini Turbo, second gen 5 GT Turbo, or of course the Big Daddy mid-engined RWD 5 Turbo - but these are no longer cheap. If you want a combination of decent performance, simplicity, affordability and some small degree of investability, you could do a lot worse than a normally-aspirated gen-two 1.7 like this one. Especially at this price.

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!

Anyone under 30 who hasn't marvelled at the response of a well set up carburetted car uncorrupted by driver aids like ABS or traction control needs to at least consider something like this before it's too late. The honest vendor tells us that this is not a well set up specimen, but just take it round to your mature local spannerman and watch his eyes light up (in a good and kindly way).

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 other downsides? Though it certainly qualifies for cheap classic insurance, its vintage and engine size mean it doesn't qualify for cheap tax: as a pre-March '01 car displacing more than the somewhat random figure of 1,549cc, it will cost you a hefty £230 a year. If you don't want politics in your Shedding, look away now, but surely it's high time someone cast the same sort of eye over this daft tax structure as has recently been (belatedly) applied to Stamp Duty.

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.

Here's the ad.

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!

 

 

[The Donster]

I was reminiscing with a pal last night on the good old days of flaky small French car ownership, and this very car came up in conversation! Strangely nice piece of kit and semi-quick (even better if you bolt a turbo on it, as a lot of people were doing with a 1.7 turbo install into 5GTTs back in the day).