THE BIG RESTORATION
This future of this car was looking bleak, until resto hero Gary Needs took on the challenge
Gary Needs’s garage is so tidy that you wouldn’t think much hard labour has been done in there. It feels more like a cosy showroom than a mechanic’s workshop, until you notice a lathe tucked in a corner, then the press, and drawers of ordered tools. Then Gary shows you photos of piles of rusty parts – what this Renault 5 Turbo used to look like – and you begin to appreciate what a hive of activity this place must have been.
In 1977, Renault had ambitions to create a rally car from the mild-mannered, classy little front-engined R5 – acar to send into Group 4 battle against the likes of the Lancia Stratos – so a small team of in-house engineers got to work. A gaping chasm was sliced through the middle of the rear shell to accommodate a longitudinal 1.4-litre engine where the rear seats used to be, plus a Garrett T3 turbocharger, with Alpine rear suspension and a five-speed gearbox from the Renault 30. Marcello Gandini (of Lamborghini fame) oversaw the design of some mad new bodywork to accommodate it and reduce overall weight, and the resulting Renault 5 Turbo entered production in Dieppe in 1980.
In the World Rally Championship, the lively rear end made these cars more agile than the early 4WD competition. Audi would change all that, but not before the Renault 5 Turbo had made its mark.
Search YouTube and you’ll find footage of these cars squirming through the snow at Monte Carlo, where they won in 1981 and 1982. The homologation run of 400 examples proved so popular that Renault made nearly 5000 over the six-year production run, most of them being second-gen Turbo 2 models – like the car we’re admiring today. The zany interior was toned down and a few areas of heavier materials were used in place of the earlier glassfibre and aluminium, but the raw mechanical thrill was untouched. Gary’s previous resto project – amega-rare Chevette HSR – had been his pride and joy, but his ownership wasn’t all bliss. ‘The problem was that no-one really knew what it was. I was at a show with it one day and a guy showed an interest. He offered a reason
