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The renowned French motor company, Regie Renault, set upon exploiting their turbo image, started in 1975 planning for a R5 Group 4 rally car as a challenger in the World Rally Championships. This same car was also going to be marketed to the public in a slightly de-tuned form as the Renault 5 Turbo. It was to look relevant to the front-drive/front engined R5 hatchback well known as "'Le Car". This new model was designed and developed at BEREX, Renault's parallel studio in Dieppe. Work started with the standard Le Car hull, but a mid-mounted engine with rear wheel drive was adopted, and an entirely new suspension system designed. The motor retains the two valves per cylinder head, and wet sump lubrication, but the compression ratio was reduced from 10:1 to 7:1. Turbo-charging is via the Garrett AiResearch T3 Turbo which blows at a maximum 13.05 psi and the 5 Turbo’s air/air intercooler reduces post compressed inlet air by some 30 degrees C with each degree reduction in charge temperature being worth about 1 brake horsepower. Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection is used.
The road engine developed 160bhp at 6000rpm and torque of 155 lb ft at 3250rpm. Power is transmitted to the rear wheels through a twin-plate diaphragm clutch and a five-speed gearbox, adopted from the Renault 30TX V6 saloon. It has a relatively high-geared rack and pinion steering with 3.2 turns from lock to lock. Four servo assisted ventilated discs from the Citroen CX, and calipers from the Renault Fuego coupe provide excellent braking. The wheelbase of the 5 Turbo is a little longer than Le Car at 12 feet and much wider at 5.74 ft an increase of 9.05". This new little hot rod front Renault weighs in, with a full 93 litre, gas tank, at 2138 lbs (970kg) and it will cover a standing kilometer in less than 28 seconds.
The Renault engineers are of the opinion that since rally cars seldom exceed l00mph (162kmih) there was no need to design a super smooth body styling, so the high drag coefficient really makes no difference in the end result of rally racing. Outward appearances of all three of these little cars is very much the same in 'silhouette', which is what Renault started out to do, and they have done a magnificent job. Both the racer and the road car utilize the same basic 1397cc OHV inline tour cylinder engine and their performance characteristics are really not that far apart. The 5 Turbo road car has, of course, comfortable bucket seats and luxurious carpeting and gets a good 15 miles to the gallon, wherein the racer is stripped down and gets only 5 miles to the gallon. The Renault 5 Le Car can boast of 30 miles per gallon economy but it will not do 0-60 IN 7.7 seconds either. To qualify for Group 4 rally racing, Renault had to have a series production run of 400 5 turbo's. At last count they had turned out over 2,000 of this very popular sports car.
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