French Coupé Week takes a handbrake turn for the exceptional, so hold on tight! The standard-issue Renault 5 would not be called a coupé. It’s a 3-door hatchback saloon, strictly speaking. But if you take the rear seats out and put a turbocharged engine in their stead, it’s not too much of a stretch to call it a two-seater coupé. On steroids.
It was a pretty drastic intervention. Nobody at Renault ever thought of turning the cute little FWD city car into a mid-engined fire-breathing WRC contender until that odd idea came in 1976 to Jean Terramosi, a former racing driver and Gordini protégé then in charge of limited-series products for Renault and his deputy, Henry Lherm. They were admiring the Lancia Stratos and figured that the charismatic R5 could be used as a vessel for a real Renault rally car – something Alpine were in no position to develop at the time.
They called it Projet 822 and work proceeded pretty swiftly. An initial styling blueprint was done in-house by Robert Opron, fresh out of Citroën, while the engineering team identified the motor they wanted to use – the front-drive R5 Alpine’s 1397cc, but fuel-injected and fed by a Garrett T3 turbocharger, placed just ahead of the rear wheels and mated to a 5-speed gearbox. Terramosi never saw the first prototype though: he passed away suddenly in August 1976. But his vision had caught on.
In 1977, a second-hand Renault 5 Alpine was driven to the Bertone works in Turin, loaded with blueprints. Marcello Gandini was tasked with realising the first mock-up of the heavily revised R5, along with the interior styling. Renault wanted something that would wow the world, both inside and out.
The 5’s basic monocoque was essentially kept as was, though certain modifications (e.g. the roof and the hatch, now made of aluminium) were implemented even there. The famous all-torsion-bar suspension was kept at the front, though all the components of the suspension were beefed up pretty substantially. The rear suspension, however, was based on the Alpine A310 V6, with double wishbones and coils. Ventilated disc brakes were naturally adopted on all corners.
A twin fuel tank setup, totalling 93 litres, also gave the car a huge amount of autonomy – those huge cheeks were not merely used for cooling the engine. The R5 Turbo premiered at the 1978 Paris Motor Show, though it was still a non-functional show car (built by Heuliez) at that point.
Development carried on until a pre-series model was seen at Frankfurt in 1979, and the car saw its baptism of fire at the Giro d’Italia in October of that year. But the real launch took place in January 1980 at the Brussels show. France’s first turbocharged production car was now officially on the market.
The main goal was to enter the R5 Turbo in the World Rally Championship’s Groups 3 and 4, so Renault’s rally drivers got dibs on the first cars. Those were in race tune, with a 210-250hp engine initially, though some were later boosted to over 350hp to keep up with the competition.
But there was also a street version, with a respectable 160hp (DIN). Only available in blue or red, it was the proverbial pocket rocket. Said pocket had to be quite deep, though, as at FF 125k a pop in the summer of 1980, the R5 Turbo was – by some margin – the most expensive car in the range, Alpine A310 included.
Our feature car, though, is the Turbo 2 (1983-85), the cheaper second series of the beast. The first iteration’s whacky Bertone interior was replaced by something a lot more sensible (and fashionably black), straight out of the R5 Alpine. The Turbo 1’s aluminium panels reverted to steel, as well. This resulted in a 25% reduction in price, without changing the car’s blistering performance.
The Turbo 2’s unchanged 160hp engine, despite the (negligible) weight gain, still delivered a 0 to 100kph time under seven seconds, as well as a top speed in excess of 205kph (120mph). I’m not sure how safe one would feel going that fast in a glorified ‘70s city car. That steering wheel sure looks tempting.
The front end is filled to the brim with a fat spare wheel, the battery and the radiator, so there’s virtually no cargo space to speak of. Just a tiny void between the hatch and the engine cover – enough for a couple of shopping bags, if that. It’s a near-pure, loud and hot rally car, not a comfy GT designed to whisk you to the Riviera. Yet despite this and their astronomical retail value, Renault sold these as quickly as they could build them.
They even exported a few – including all the way to Japan, as we can see. There’s a fair chance that the one I caught was sold here new 40 years ago. The Turbo 1 (1980-82) garnered 1690 sales, whereas the slightly cheaper and saner Turbo 2 sold 3167 copies. An untold number of additional Turbo 1s were made in WRC spec and eagerly raced, with evermore powerful engines, throughout the ‘80s.
This may explain why Renault did not feel an immediate need to propose a successor to the beastly R5. There was a Super5 Turbo GT, but it was a tamer front-driver – more akin to the R5 Alpine. Nevertheless, the R5 Turbo left an indelible impression on enthusiasts. Even young ones such as yours truly, who gazed in wonder at the rare sight of those huge rear air scoops flanking the familiar R5 taillights, were well aware that this was not the same car as the neighbour’s grocery-getter.
Renault eventually tapped into this heritage by creating the 1999 Clio Trophy rally car, soon followed by the related street-legal 2001-05 Clio V6 Sport, featuring a 2.9 litre 227hp 6-cyl. engine. Just under 3000 of those were made – close, but not quite as good as its illustrious ancestor.
As one of the few RWD cars based on a FWD model, the R5 Turbo is intrinsically strange. But add the scarcity, the wide hips and the racing pedigree, and you’ve got something of a legend. On steroids.
Related post:
Curbside Classic: 1983-86 Renault R5 Turbo II – Le Monster Car, by Dave Skinner
The standard R5 is an attractive car but the Turbo (and II) are just stunning, and I don’t say that as just a smitten ten year old of yore, it holds up to my smitten 54-year-old-ness even now when I generally shy well away from the more outrageous offerings available. I don’t think there is a bad angle, not something that can be said often and especially with much of it locked in from the base car.
Having seen a few over the years both static and in action, it’s solidly in the top ten of cars I’d like to have a go in. Not so much for the speed which isn’t that great anymore, but more for just being able to feel the engine behind, the noise, and perhaps (hopefully?) even some scents of hot lubricants etc wafting about without an imminent thread of massive failure and wait for a tow…
A fun find and a complete metamorphosis from a very pedestrian car into pretty much its polar opposite. Well done, Regie, well done indeed.
While other middle school boys had posters of the Lamborghini Countach or Ferrari 512BB (or Farrah Fawcett, but that’s an entirely different story!) on their bedroom walls, THIS is the car whose poster graced my wall, proof that tiny cars could be supercars, too.
The formula was greatly improved upon when someone stuffed a Taurus SHO engine into the back of a Festiva a decade later, but that wasn’t really a production car.
This is what my LeCar wanted to be when it grew up.
Steroid abuse is obvious from the first glance, these were a rocket ship at the time.
These are running consistently north of $120K on Bring A Trailer these days… wow!
How much less fun life would have been without the R5 Turbo.
BTW, this was an ohv pushrod hemi engine; no overhead cams here.
The original 5 is so perfect it looks like a frozen in a model’s finest photo, like some mobile insouciant look. To cool for conversation, too right to ever date. Small cars are famously hard to dress in an interesting way, and yet it’s a multi-million seller rarity.
By way of another road, the one to ruination, these uncouth turbo kit-car versions have always offended mine eyes, epitomizing my personal idea of what a brain-dried lair might think is hot. So very tacky, and tacked-on, despite the laggy but leggy little penny-bunger of a motor shoved up their clackers. Ugh! Restrain yourself, la Regie, please.
And yet, and yet. For reasons I cannot fathom, I think the Clio V6 is ridiculously desirable, despite it being all-but a Turbo 5 . I can only speculate that it’s because the job is more of whole, more by a professional and not some fibreglass-infested tuner – but then, some might just call it blander – I wouldn’t, natch – and they mightn’t be wrong. A riddle wrapped inside an enigma inside a brief souffle of relevance, I guess.
Always intrigued by these, and always attracted by the original Series 1 interior – the steering wheel and binnacle were outstanding.