History of the Renault 5 Turbo: Time For Tea?
The beginnings of Renault's hot hatch legacy, starring J Ragnotti
Here is a clip from Renault's own documentary on the 5 and its growth from cute city car to Group B rally warrior. It was quite the transformation, spurred on by an emergent French rally talent in the 70s, one Jean Ragnotti. He took second at the 1978 Monte Carlo rally in a Group 2 Renault 5 Alpine, a car that wasn't realistically expected to finish any higher than eighth. If that's what he can achieve in a theoretically slow car, imagine what he could do in a fast one...
So then we're onto the Turbo's development, with great period footage of big arches being bashed on and engines being installed through the boot. There's plenty of Ragnotti/5 action too, including a victory on the car's debut at Monte Carlo and a reunion with the original Alpine car. A great way to while away the minutes before home time!
See the video here.
In my year of ownership it'd had a new steering rack & head gasket and was heading toward a new turbo & clutch. I sold it but I think somewhere in rolled-over-wonga-debt I'm still paying for it, 25 years later.
Friend had one in the 90's - the dark blue raider. it looked awesome
The final F2 race, 1984, Brands Hatch.
The Renault 5 Turbo Championship was one of the support races. Most of these guys seemed to be from Holland and apart from the clearly slumming it Jan Lammers, most had obviously never seen Brands or Druids before.
Bearing in mind it was mildly moist they all went barrelling out of the pits for the first time and up to the hairpin one by one....
Skiddy noises, gravel noises.
Skiddy noises, gravel noises.
Skiddy noises, gravel noises.
Skiddy noises, gravel noises.
Skiddy noises, clumping bendy noises.
Skiddy noises, clumping bendy noises.
Red Flag
Assorted sheepish Dutch Renault drivers, lots of laughing spectators.
Funnily enough I've just remembered my other funniest motorsport moment was also at Brands, the Formula Woman race in the Mazda RX-8s. Similar thing but they didn't even make it past Paddock Hill Bend.
Huge fun in a tiny car - economical, comfortable, practical and bloody quick for 120BHP - look how many extra horses you require nowadays to attain the same performance! (tho' I know most of that is due to the gradual increase of modern cars' porkiness and all the electrical doo-dads). And look at the size of modern hot hatches too - you couldn't call them pocket rockets now.
I think the only breakage in 3 or 4 years was a clutch cable (common fault, but easily rectified, and no longer a problem once the factory recall upgrade was done).
One of the cars I most regret selling.
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