The Three Rs - Renault, Ragnotti and Rallying
Visitors to the Donington World Series by Renault meet earlier this month were treated to a display of majestic driving skill by rally ace Jean Ragnotti.
The eccentric 62-year old was reunited with an ex-works Group B Renault 5 Turbo for the event and showed he’s lost none of his touch, drifting round Redgate and performing his trademark 360 spins on the way out of Old Hall. To be fair, the old-timer has been keeping his hand in as a stunt driver in The Transporter and Taxi films – take a look at this for parking (Russ Swift take note).
The car he was driving was plucked from the Renault Heritage collection where each car is maintained with no expense spared. However, this got us thinking - is it possible to get a slice of the Ragnotti thrills on a fraction of the budget of a major car manufacturer? Well look no further than this week’s SOTW.
After a quick trawl through the classifieds, we found a phase one turbo in a lovely retro shade of iPod white with only 71,000 miles on the clock. Admittedly it’s no race-prepped beast, and it does without the rally car’s mid-mounted engine and bonkers aero-kit, but we reckon it still looks the part.
For your very reasonable £1000, you get the very old-school tech 1397 cc turbocharged pushrod motor, which should still squeeze out around 115 bhp and, when new, took just 7.7 seconds to hustle the car to sixty.
The performance 5 lays claim to being the original GTI, and this turbo version was Renault's response to fellow Frenchies Peugeot and their upstart 205. Weighing just 850kg, a well looked after example of this little pocket rocket can still provide a giant-killing performance. Just watch out for the turbo lag and slightly wayward handling.
1986 Renault 5 GT Turbo 3dr Hatchback; Manual; 71,000 miles.
This is my Phase 1 Renault GT Turbo, 71000 miles which is low for a car of its age, some service history, previous MOTs, engine is standard, MOT end of May ’08, tax Oct ’07, bodywork and interior in good condition, sunroof, CD player and push button engine start £1000 ovno.
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