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The L version of the car had the classic 850 cc three-bearing engine and this gave it a performance much the same as the Renault 4-no sluggard, as any owner would confirm. It had drum brakes all round, and a dynamo, whilst the 5 TL not only had a five-bearing engine similar to that of the Renault 8 but also front discs and an alternator type of generator. But was the TL engine that of the R8? To say so to the factory smacked of heresy, for the marketing people, as always, regarded it as failure if anything was admitted to be 'old'. Let It be sufficient to say, perhaps, that it had the same bore and stroke (therefore the same capacity) and the same general design as the original R8 engine. Renault claimed a DIN horsepower figure of 43 at 5,500 rpm and they said that this power was achieved by using a lower-capacity version of the 1,100 engine but with compression raised to 8.3 by machining the cylinder head. But the R8 engine had a compression ratio of 8.5, moreover its SAE bhp figure was 47, so it seems odd to have reworked the 1,100 engine. All the small five-bearing engines were siblings of the R8 in any case. The changes have always been rung by altering the bores, cam lift, valve diameter, compression ratio, carburettor, etc. Only when the R14 arrived was there a radical change, the engine then being a Renault-Peugeot unit.
The 850 version of the car had the normal belt-driven cooling fan, but the 956 had the luxury of an automatic electric fan, operated by the thermostat and relay, so it only wasted power when the engine got really hot. Both engines had a Solex 32 SE 1 carburettor with manual choke. The gearbox was a normal four-speed all-syncromesh with the familiar umbrella-handle fascia shift. Later, a floor shift was used, but it never seemed to me to be as good as the dashboard lever.
The neat 'capsule' body of the R5 was a highly scientific structure of monocoque type, mainly welded, although the bonnet, front wings, bumpers, doors, etc, were bolted in the usual way. Thickness of main outer panels was 0.7 mm but the sill members, which take a great.deal of punishment on any car, were of 1 mm steel. The front wings were of unusually stiff calibre. They also permitted the fitting of 145 x 13 inch tyres and provided sufficient clearance for snow chains, but if that clearance was sacrificed, 155 x 13 inch tyres could be fitted. Front and rear bumpers were innovative and interesting, being moulded from a pre-impregnated glass-fibre and polyester mat material. As far as I know, this was the first application of this process on mass-production car assembly lines but within a few years others had started copying. Now the idea is almost commonplace but no less effective. Such bumpers had already been used on the rear of the 15/17 series. The material is as tough as steel but more resilient. |
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