Friday 31st August 2012

Spotted: Renault 5 Turbo 2

A little tickle has unleashed the power to deliver on the outrageous looks...

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There exists a short but remarkable line of completely bonkers mid-engined French hot hatches, Renault's Clio V6 being the most recent of the breed. That car arrived some 15 years after Peugeot's 205 T16 homologation special, but the first in the line was the Renault 5 Turbo of 1980.

Proportions no less ludicrous all this time on

Like so many of the legendary performance cars we celebrate today, the 5 Turbo road car was built to homologate a competition machine. Conceived for Group 4 rallying (the pre-cursor to Group B), the 5 Turbo's job was to propel Renault to the top of the World Rally Championship, as it had been back in 1973.

Despite its modest 1.4-litre lump (chosen to keep the car within the 2,000cc class once the equivalency factor of the turbocharger had been applied) the stage-going 5 Turbo originally developed 178hp, enough to power it to victory on the 1981 Monte Carlo Rally in Jean Ragnotti's mercurial hands.

Where you'd usually put the weekly shop...

At quite extraordinary unit cost, 400 road-going versions of the rally car were built during the summer of 1980 at Renault's Alpine facility in Dieppe to meet homologation requirements. Once this had been achieved, Renault introduced the cheaper Turbo 2 model, which did away with many of the original's painfully expensive alloy components, but retained the signature architecture and turbo engine. Riggers wrote about this later version, of which more than 3,000 were built, back in April, but we've since spotted this lightly modified example.

With a John Price Rallying engine upgrade to squeeze an extra 50hp from the four-cylinder powerplant, this immaculate version goes some way to correcting the elephant in the room that is the vast imbalance between pugnaciously confrontational styling and straight-line thrust of the standard Turbo 2.

"It's behind you!" and all that

It may have been the most powerful French car of its day, but the Turbo 2's stock 162hp didn't live up to the aesthetic. With a little over 210hp this car at least has the minerals to back up its bullyboy swollen arches and gaping air intakes. We'd anticipate a sub-six second 0-60 dash, whereas the standard car takes 6.6.

The very concept of hacking a massive hole in the boot floor of a shopping hatch to create space for a turbocharged engine without any precedent was the work of deranged genius. A 30 per cent power hike gives the Renault 5 Turbo 2 longevity in this age of swollen outputs and performance figures.

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RENAULT 5 TURBO 2
Engine: 1,397cc 4-cyl, turbo
Transmission: 5-speed manual
Power (hp): 162@6,000rpm (standard)
Torque (lb ft): 163@3,250rpm
MPG: 22.0mpg
CO2: N/A
First registered: 1986
Recorded mileage: 17,600
Price new: £17,000
Yours for: £32,000

See the original advert here.

 

 

 

[Shade]

This car has been in the classifieds for months and months. Still beautiful though.

[tomoleeds]

dont remember the wide body version of this car,i had a 5 Turbo in early 90"s i had forgot about,the turbo boost went off the dial right to the end ,was that normal ?felt quick at the time.

[R66STU]

Great car, out of interest does a cover go over the rear engine ? or is it open like that whilst driving ?

[Krikkit]

R66STU said:

Great car, out of interest does a cover go over the rear engine ? or is it open like that whilst driving ?

Yep, pic 7 in the original ad.

Gorgeous car, love it! Totally outrageous, mental, probably quite tricky to handle, but compelling.

[JC2012]

Will be snapping that up if i strike lucky tonight!

[LotusOmega375D]

Renault made 1820 Turbo 1s, not just the required 400 for homologation (and 3167 Turbo 2s). 185bhp and 210bhp were factory options, so there's no need for specialist modifications. My T2 had 185bhp and was great fun. I sold it pretty much the day before the prices went thorugh the roof!

[GTRene]

lovely cars, there is also a special version of 200 cars from the Turbo 2 that also brought back some alu parts I believe?
those begin with a different chassisnumber (forgot about what)

[sjabrown]

Bonkers but beautiful in a square-80s sort of way.

[LewisR]

Horrible, horrible, horrible.
Just what is the point? It's a hot(ish) hatch without being able to use the hatch-thing.
It's the worst of both worlds; the small space of a 2 seater with the looks of a hatchback. It's only [nominally] 160bhp too.

The Sierra Cosworth was out in '86 (just).

[vintageracer01]

I ALL THESE OUTRAGESLY BONKERS CARS TODAY!!!

Everything seems so political correct and bloody rational (...and in the end-result it isn' t. See financial crisis and many others!)

[HAB]

LewisR said:

Horrible, horrible, horrible.
Just what is the point?

The point was to homologate for Group 4 rallying.

[MCBrowncoat]

LewisR said:

Horrible, horrible, horrible.
Just what is the point? It's a hot(ish) hatch without being able to use the hatch-thing.
It's the worst of both worlds; the small space of a 2 seater with the looks of a hatchback. It's only [nominally] 160bhp too.

The Sierra Cosworth was out in '86 (just).

The fact that it's bonkers and completely impractical IS the point, no?

[LotusOmega375D]

GTRene said:

lovely cars, there is also a special version of 200 cars from the Turbo 2 that also brought back some alu parts I believe?
those begin with a different chassisnumber (forgot about what)

8221, rather than 8220 of all the others. Fractionally larger displacement as well but no more power in stock form. Built to allow 10% (I.e. 20) Evolution models (Maxi 5 Turbo) to be built. Most of these 20 were promptly broken for spares to keep the Works cars running.

[LewisR]

HAB said:

LewisR said:

Horrible, horrible, horrible.
Just what is the point?

The point was to homologate for Group 4 rallying.

Ah, OK, point taken. Still don't like it though.

[anonymous-user]

There is an amazing blue and orange/red one I always see in bridgenorth town. Always slow down to have a look.

[richb77]

Me likey...But £32-fking-grand!

[Dr Imran T]

Stunning car and a great piece of history. A car with great kudos

[AllNines]

Article said:

the stage-going 5 Turbo originally developed 178hp, enough to power it to victory on the 1981 Monte Carlo Rally

I think you'll find that the group 4 rally version produced 250bhp (@6000 revs apparently).

[Hoygo]

^^^ Wtf at the dude above? Its a Group B homologation you ignorant,Pug 205 T16,S4 stradale all are like this,but their price is between 50-150 K,mid engined,no boot,two seaters,understeery-oveersteery as sh!t and probably the standard versions GTI/integrale are faster in much occasions.

The beauty of these cars is somewhere else,these were supercars with a hot-hatch vest at their time,if i had 32k id buy this Turbo 2 just for its sheer greatness and rareness.

[300bhp/ton]

That is one cool little car. But you can buy a heck of a lot for £32k these days.... Is this really fast enough, good looking enough or truly rare with a an outstanding competition history to justify the price?

Either way it is rather fabulous!