SOTW: R5 Turbo
Pretend you're Jean Ragnotti
The Three Rs - Renault, Ragnotti and Rallying
The eccentric 62-year old was reunited with an ex-works Group B Renault 5 Turbo for the event and showed he’s lost none of his touch, drifting round Redgate and performing his trademark 360 spins on the way out of Old Hall. To be fair, the old-timer has been keeping his hand in as a stunt driver in The Transporter and Taxi films – take a look at this for parking (Russ Swift take note).
The car he was driving was plucked from the Renault Heritage collection where each car is maintained with no expense spared. However, this got us thinking - is it possible to get a slice of the Ragnotti thrills on a fraction of the budget of a major car manufacturer? Well look no further than this week’s SOTW.
After a quick trawl through the classifieds, we found a phase one turbo in a lovely retro shade of iPod white with only 71,000 miles on the clock. Admittedly it’s no race-prepped beast, and it does without the rally car’s mid-mounted engine and bonkers aero-kit, but we reckon it still looks the part.
For your very reasonable £1000, you get the very old-school tech 1397 cc turbocharged pushrod motor, which should still squeeze out around 115 bhp and, when new, took just 7.7 seconds to hustle the car to sixty.
The performance 5 lays claim to being the original GTI, and this turbo version was Renault's response to fellow Frenchies Peugeot and their upstart 205. Weighing just 850kg, a well looked after example of this little pocket rocket can still provide a giant-killing performance. Just watch out for the turbo lag and slightly wayward handling.
The ad says:
1986 Renault 5 GT Turbo 3dr Hatchback; Manual; 71,000 miles.
This is my Phase 1 Renault GT Turbo, 71000 miles which is low for a car of its age, some service history, previous MOTs, engine is standard, MOT end of May ’08, tax Oct ’07, bodywork and interior in good condition, sunroof, CD player and push button engine start £1000 ovno.
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Just don't know if its one of those dreams best left unrealised now.
I really loved its go-kart-esque-ish handling where all the weight felt as though it was way below the swage line! Didn't enjoy coming out of wet roundabouts though, when it seemed to want to forge an amorous relationship with the kerbs!
When I had a prang I saw fit to respray her in Toyota Mk.2 MR2 'Super Bright Yellow' (swatch no. 549, if memory serves - how sad?), plus various body 'enhancements' of the time. I also had the rather crude bleed-valve fitted by BBR (at least they fitted a bigger carb jet!) - probably putting out 145-155 bhp. It had an in-car variable anodised boost-control knob which, when turned right round, would shoot out 6-foot long flames from me tailpipe, innit! Thing which worried me most though, was that bloomin' anti-perculation fan - used to worry that it'd catch fire through the friction of worn-out bearings! (a well documented ailment of these cars).
The car WAS a money pit (something had to be replaced/repaired pretty much every month) but the major malady of head gasket failure never occured, even with the bleed valve fitted. However, went through at least two turbos - unsurprisngly, the bleed-valve mod was to blame...
Had her for 6 years, before giving up - happy times though.
I remember seeing the Turbo 2 racers and really loved the look of the racing body kit. I would love to get another and do it up with my old Manta GTE coupe.
Those were the days when insurance was ballistic and any decent car got twoc'd.
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