Photo: RM Sotheby's
Every now and then, the French make the rounds in the automotive world with a special breed of car. Since the 1980s, their specialty is the hot hatchback. Along with Peugeot’s 205 GTI, Renault made a lot of jaws drop with the advent of the R5 Turbo.
Designed with rallying in mind, the Renault 5 Turbo is a very different beast from the subcompact hatchback on which it’s based. For starters, it features a rear midship configuration. Then there’s the rear-wheel-drive layout, which makes the timeless Renault 5 Turbo a pretty exciting car to chuck about.
The car in the adjacent gallery is a Turbo 2, a late model that makes use of more Renault 5 parts than the original iteration of the R5 Turbo. Nevertheless, you will be hard-pressed to find a Renault 5 Turbo 2 as pristine as this one.
Stepping into the cabin, you’ll notice the beautiful Jaeger gauges and an odometer that reads 5,984 km. For a car built in 1983, it’s needless to point out that the absurdly low mileage makes it a bit of a time capsule. Vector in a tip-top body shell, and you’re looking at an estimate of €75,000, probably even €95,000 (approximately $101,500) according to RM Sotheby’s.
The belly of the beast is a 1.4-liter Cleon-Fonte turbo-L4 enhanced with Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection. With 158 bhp to its name and a curb weight of less than a metric ton, the R5 Turbo 2 was (and still is) the perfect embodiment of a hot hatch. Just look at the thing! How macho can a French supermini get?
What’s more, the Garrett T3 turbocharger certainly knows how to entertain even the keenest of keen drivers. As a testament to its no-nonsense character, the Turbo 2 also happens to be gifted with rear double-wishbone and coil-spring suspension. By comparison, modern go-faster subcompacts such as the Ford Fiesta ST employ twist-beam suspension at the rear axle.
The car in the adjacent gallery is a Turbo 2, a late model that makes use of more Renault 5 parts than the original iteration of the R5 Turbo. Nevertheless, you will be hard-pressed to find a Renault 5 Turbo 2 as pristine as this one.
Stepping into the cabin, you’ll notice the beautiful Jaeger gauges and an odometer that reads 5,984 km. For a car built in 1983, it’s needless to point out that the absurdly low mileage makes it a bit of a time capsule. Vector in a tip-top body shell, and you’re looking at an estimate of €75,000, probably even €95,000 (approximately $101,500) according to RM Sotheby’s.
The belly of the beast is a 1.4-liter Cleon-Fonte turbo-L4 enhanced with Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection. With 158 bhp to its name and a curb weight of less than a metric ton, the R5 Turbo 2 was (and still is) the perfect embodiment of a hot hatch. Just look at the thing! How macho can a French supermini get?
What’s more, the Garrett T3 turbocharger certainly knows how to entertain even the keenest of keen drivers. As a testament to its no-nonsense character, the Turbo 2 also happens to be gifted with rear double-wishbone and coil-spring suspension. By comparison, modern go-faster subcompacts such as the Ford Fiesta ST employ twist-beam suspension at the rear axle.
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