The industrial roots of Torrance, CA, give it a feel that’s more Cleveland than Santa Monica. So imagine my surprise when I spotted this Renault Turbo II parked against the curb on the corner of Satori and Arlington Avenues. I’ve found a number of Curbside Classics in this area, but I typically spot American iron built-in the sixties or seventies, rather than an European homologation special from the eighties.
While most of us probably recall the existence of the Renault Turbo, I know I’d forgotten the specifics of this particular model. A quick Google search reminded me that the full name of this model is the Renault R5 Turbo II. The R5 Turbo had been built to compete in the European Rally circuit, and shared a body shell and engine with the R5 econobox. However, to better compete, Renault placed the powertrain behind the driver to create a mid-engine drive line, and turbocharged the base 1397 cc motor to create 158 horsepower and 163 foot pounds of torque. This engine has the same pushrod hemi head as the R5 Alpine/Gordini.
Image: Bringatrailer.com
The tuning house Alpine assembled the first 400 R5 Turbos specifically for the rally circuit, and these cars included multiple modifications including an aluminum hood and roof and race grade interior.The racing versions had their power upped steadily over a number of years, as much as 345 hp in the 1984 R5 Maxi Turbo.
The R5 Turbo won the Monte Carlo Rally on its first outing in 1981. It added a number of other victories, but its rallying career was cut short when the new Group 4 four wheel drive cars appeared, and were faster in the dirt and gravel.
Image: Bringatrailer.com
Renault also built a street version called the Turbo II, which is what our featured car is. This simplified version was built in the Renault factory. It used all steel body panels with standard seats and dashboard, but packed the same turbo powertrain as the full rally version. It was capable of a 200 kmh (120 mph) top speed and the dash from 0-100 km (0-61 mph) in 6.9 seconds. This was pretty seriously fast for the early eighties. Some 3,576 R5 Turbos were built between 1980 and 1984.
Awesome
Just
Awesome
I’ve got a small one of those!
Corgi Juniors:
That booty doesn’t need pass hungry!!
Le Twerking!
I remember discovering the R5 Turbo I at the Salon de l’Auto in Paris in 1980 with my father. It created quite a stir. The car was bright red and the interior (all in flashy tones of red and blue) was as incredible as the body. The Turbo II which came 2 years later looked a bit tamer in comparison, still it definitely made your day when you saw one on the street, which did not happen often. I’ve never sat in one but it’s supposed to be amazing to drive.
Totally frigging chunky. Great find Dave.
These cars are very small, so they can be placed very accurately into corners. Nice steering with monster power.
Renault have very good gearbox ratios so i imagine that it all works incredibly well from 20kph -200kph.
I have a 205GTI not as much power but nice.
Despite the power, about 200 km/h is about what you get — it has a bunch more frontal area than a standard R5 and its drag coefficient is nothing to brag about. As a rally car, obviously top speed was a much lower priority than acceleration.
I knew about this car from your excellent article. I’m a big fan.
That’s just beautiful. A car that looks like something out of a James Bond movie parked in front of a white picket fence in Anytown, USA? I assume they also have a unicorn in their back yard.
This excercise was later repeated with the Clio V6, including 2-seater, rear-engine concept. Hilarious.
Is it still the “CC effect” if I bought one of these yesterday in the Forza Horizon 2 video game and it appears here in the same white colour?
I’ll say yes.
Used to navigate in a Group B Turbo 1.
The guy who owned it ended up with a real ex-works training car used by French works driver Ragnotti a real Renault man !
I Always felt safe in the Group B 5 Turbo, the cage was integrated int he car and the car was completely spot-welded so ‘t was unbelievebly stiff.
Going from tarmac to gravel with over 100 MPH was no big deal in the five.
Then, due to the tragic death of Henri Toivonen who crashed his works Lancia Delta S4 tragically in the Tour de Corse on the Island of Corsica, he and Sergio Cresto were burned in the crash, FIA president Jean Marie Balestre sent the Group B cars to the scrap heap by banning htem.
My driver bought a Ford Sierra Cosworth Group A rally car.
After our first training session in the new bigger car, I saw the dashboard panel move and squeek, and my door move and jutter when we entered the gravel and heard the hinges or lock clutter and saw the window move.
I got out and never went back into a rally car again
Well we now practice in an ex-works Impreza WRC GC two door car, ex works means Prodrive car Number 023. !
Thanks for that great background. I’d love to hear more about your experiences riding in the left seat!
This is on my short list of cars I’d nearly kill to get behind the wheel of. That cockpit shot above just makes me itch to hop in and put it through its paces. I doubt I’ll ever get the chance due to the relative rarity of these. I’ve seen a couple for sale on Ebay in Canada, but of course the demand is high, the supply low, and the prices are prohibitive, at least for me.
Back in the day we used to call it “the rollin’ coffin”. Too small, too powerful, too dangerous to be used as a daily driver. Uncle of mines mind had been blewn out about the R5 Turbo more because he was/is an R5 fan who lived then in France and had absolute access to any of the actual french models. He ruther owned a regular TL mark.
According to Ate Up With Motor, only about 200 made their way into the States, all black market. And I got to drive one, in late ’86 or early ’87. The owner of the boat shop I worked at had one. And he was expecting to take delivery of his new Ferrari anytime, so had to shuttle one of his rigs home. He walks out into the shop, looks around for a second, tosses me a set of keys, points to the Turbo2, and says jump in that and follow me. He took the Chevy shop truck! I was a whopping 20 years old at the time, and I was thrilled! Fun car, basically an enclosed go-kart with a heater. And there is a reason for those wide meats on the rear. I had no idea how few were in the country at the time. 🙂
Alpines plan was to build 3000! for the US market but that did not happen .French market models were converted ,on import, by the many”grey import” workshops that sprang around rather than Renault.
Bet your bosses one was red?. Never seen a white one.
Dave, great catch – I shot this one in the San Fernando Valley (on Canoga by Topanga Plaza) back in the mid-80’s…the plate is different “QKRELEF” (Quick Relief) but it COULD be the same one, who knows.
Though the R5 Turbo was a true homologation special, not all of the first 400 cars went to the rally circuit. There was a street legal version sold to private buyers, and the first series of cars had a truly outrageous interior designed by Marcello Gandini. It was a pocket supercar, and it was probably sold at a heavy loss for homologation reasons. The second series “Turbo 2” was decontented, all the special bits went out and was replaced with regular R5 bits and pieces where they could be substituted.
This interior is from a Turbo 1 in plain clothes but not with the Original steering wheel fitted.
The Turbo 1 had aluminium doorskins and an aluminium roof.
Renault Always surprised me as a large car producer in how fast they can respond to the market sometimes.
Like the BMW M1, they held racing series for the Reanutl 5 Turbo, called the Turbo cup and many famous drivers were involved.
And Renault were very quick to make the 5-Turbo simpler and cheaper, by using the dashboard and seats from the FWD Renault 5 Alpine Turbo (or Gordini as it was named in the UK) and by makein a steel shell with steel doors on the Turbo 2.
This was done because they found a relatively large market for an awkward car like the 5 Turbo !
The same concept was applied in the US… the Ford SHOgun. Festiva with a mid-mounted SHO V6. This one is Jay Leno’s.
A Kia Pride based Ford Festiva with a…WHAT??? It’s amazing too.
Weren’t those totally a custom job, though? Same concept but the R5 Turbo and Clio V6 were (limited) production models.
I would imagine it’s an original US car due to the lights on the fenders. I imagine you wouldn’t have to add those to an imported classic car.
It also has a “sunset” plate, which was only available in CA for a short time in the mid-late 1980s. This has almost certainly been here since that time and hence is probably a Sun car.
Good catch Joe- The graphics on the sunset plate are subtle enough to miss, but that greatly narrows down the initial registration period.
Technically, that only dates the plate rather than the registration of the car. Since California personalized plates can be transferred to different cars, (unlike regular issue plates) there’s a possibility that it was initially registered to any other car, and then transferred once the owner acquired the R5T2. Given the length of time it would have taken to import and Federalize the car vs the time it would take to get the plate, it’s reasonably likely that’s what was done.
When I was in high school in Marin County in the 70s, there was a middle-eastern kid who had a red one as his daily driver. I always assumed he was the son of a diplomat in one of the San Francisco consulates. It had a CA plate on it, but I doubt it was “legally” registered.
Wouldn’t it still be an “original” ie Sun-federalized car in that scenario? If not, then the owner would have had to acquired a personalized “5TURBO2” plate during the sunset plate era, and then held onto it for 20+ years until one could be legally imported. That strikes me as highly unlikely.
There are few highs for we CCers than bumbling across something that is really, really rare. Congrats, Dave! Thanks for the writeup, because by the time these were around, I had reached the stage in my life where I had tuned out on this kind of car. All these years later, I find it really cool.
Yep- I think the tires left skid marks when I stopped to photograph it.
In terms of scarcity, this has to rival the 1973 Toyota Carina I found up the street three years ago.
What a great find !
As an aside, the 1976 Renault 5 Alpine was introduced two months before that other hot hatch.
Some numbers: a 93 hp 1.4 liter engine, 5 speed manual, 850 kg (1,874 lbs). Later there was also an R5 Alpine Turbo.
Renault was -and is- a big name in autosport, right up to the highest level (Formula One).
Some action.
I well remember one of these passing me like a streak of lightening on Angeles Crest Highway in the mid ’80’s. Followed by a couple of sportbikers dragging their kneecaps in an attempt to keep up!
Insane car, what a great find!
What a find!
Some of the cars created to meet Group B rally regs in the early 1980s were quite, like the mid engined 3 litre V6 MG Metro 6R4 and perhaps best of all the Peugeot 205T16. The link to the relevant road car was not always obvious or convincing, but they were all spectacular to watch , and hear!
Thanks Dave!
Neat registration too
The Group B cars are the best. There’s not a single one I don’t lust after. Banning a class because it was simply too dangerous for people to handle is just as badass as it gets to a kid like me in the eighties.
I often sit next to the driver of this one at classic rally events, no more competition, these cars are too valuable for this !
I forgot to add to my other post, I am 49 now, and the Turbo2 was the one and only French car I have ever driven in my life. Most people have never seen one. If you gonna drive a French car, do it right!
I’m surprised to learn the Turbo 2 is still “just” a four-banger, given how desperate Renault was to use up PRV V6s (there might still be some hidden in the break room couches…)
or under the hatches of Deloreans…
The first-gen PRV available at the start of production probably would have blown up under pressure!
The later, heavily revised even-fire PRV on the other hand took well to forced induction, and saw work in the 25 V6 Turbo, Renault Alpine A610, and the Venturi Atlantique 300 and 400LM.
I’ve never seen one in person, but always loved the legend of these. An automaker doing a mid-engine conversion on its own grocery-getting, commuting hatchback is beyond cool.
It’s also a great picture with the picket fence, and suitably anonymous neighborhood cars in the background…wait, there’s an El Camino around the corner, proof of the author’s SoCal-Camino hypothesis.
I almost pointed out that El Camino myself. Here’s a link to the complete article:
The El Caminos of LA
someone above mentioned it looked like a james bond car. as as matter of fact, if memory serves the villainess in Never Say Never Again, Fatima Blush drove one!
I just love these things and I have never seen one in person. I want one and an extra drivetrain to drop in my Lotus Europa S2.
Thank you for the article.
Love these, and what a very cool thing to find curbside! While it’s more exotic than the typical CC fare, it’s a fantastic find. I had no idea that there were any brought over and federalized originally though…learn something new every day.
A left turn down the middle of Sartori would put you in the old Pacific Electric Railway (Red Car) shops, if they were still there. That land sits under Edelbrock’s HQ now
I always had a “thing” for those cars, thought they were way cool. Even more surprising is that it would seem to be registered in Calif, the Feds might let it in, but it’s still got to pass smog.
As far as the sunset plate, I think you can buy them now as personalized plates now, so it wouldn’t have to be all that old, and the plate does look pretty new.
“you can buy them now as personalized plates now”
At the time the article was written, California did not offer the sunset plate.
“and the plate does look pretty new”
I’d say the rest of the car does as well.
The sunset graphic plate was optional from 1982 to 1987, and has never been offered since. The only thing anywhere close currently available is the “California Arts Council” plate, which has 4 palm trees on the left, and a setting sun on the right.
They had a black one on display at the Lane Motor Muesum when I was there last week. Out of all the weird stuff they have there, the R5 turbo really stuck out in my mind. Mainly cause it was about the wildest thing on display that was a regular production car made by an established car maker
This car is the epitome of the roided-out small hatchback. The first time I saw one on TV I fell in love. It was years before the import tuner scene (at least here in the midwest). One thing nobody’s mentioned is the absolutely bonkers spoiler! Starting at the bottom of the A-pillar, goes up to the roof and all the way to the rear. I don’t think any spoiler has ever come close to how long this one is. Normally I despise all spoilers and all wings. It’s so well integrated yet doesn’t scream boy racer. The picture below is a restromodded R5 withe spoiler painted red.
I vaguely remember seeing one of these up at Newcomb’s Ranch on a Sunday in 1990, amid all the bikes. It was white as I recall; I wonder if it was this car?
Interesting lil speed demon! 🙂 DFO