Renault 5

            

    

Mention the Renault Le Car to the average person on the street, and, if they even remember it, you'll get only snorts of derision and, perhaps, even some open, scornful chortling.

In truth, the Le Car was an awful car with a cutesy name--slow, unreliable, and little more than a French Chevette. To the cynical, it was the latest installment in a decades-long plot to grind Renault's already iffy reputation in America into dust.

But mention the Renault 5 (or R5)--the European designation of the Le Car--to an enthusiast, and you may see at least the flickering beginning of respect. For the 98-pound weakling Le Car at least had a few big brothers to keep off the bullies, in the form of the R5 GT Turbo and the R5 Turbo Group B.

The R5 GT Turbo was a quick little hot hatchback, a part of the European move towards hot-rod compact cars in the 1980s that was popularized by the Volkswagen GTI. In the dark days of the early 1980s, the R5 GT Turbo was both a performance bargain and a strong enthusiast ride in its own right, wrapped in a practical and inexpensive hatchback body.

While the Le Car was a nerdy runt and the R5 GT Turbo was a respectable street tough, the R5 Turbo Group B was the equivalent of a former Navy Seal who also happens to dabble in the ninja arts in his spare time.

The R5 Turbo Group B, as the name implies, was a leading light in the Group B rally class, made up of some of the most spellbinding cars ever to come into limited production. The street versions of those rally cars sported supercar acceleration, massive turbocharged horsepower, and all-wheel drive traction. The class gave rise to other such legends as the Ford RS200, the MG Metro 6R4, and the better-known Porsche 959, which, believe it or not, was among the slowest cars in the class.

The Le Car might have been a joke, but nobody laughed at the R5 Turbo or the R5 Turbo Group B.

The hilarious vintage ad was found at www.carpictures.com, and the R5 Turbo image came from user Hans Vink at Flickr.

--Chris H.

Comments

[Tom on July 11, 2009 at 01:02 PM]

Also one of my longtime car lusts, but it was never available in the States or affordable anywhere.

[Aleks Risitic, Toronto on December 20, 2009 at 04:03 PM]

I thought Suzuki Fronte was cooler:
http://www.suzuki-collection.com/coupe/images/zilver.jpg
http://www.suzuki-sc100.demon.co.uk/fronteGXCF.jpg