FRENCH FURY: Ferocious Mid-Engine 1983 Renault R5 Turbo 2 Homologated Rally Champ | EP21

French here, love to know that some people across the ocean can appreciate these little cars of ours. I think it ended up into the right hands :)

As a French, this video kind of made me emotional. The R5 Turbo 2 is a rare sight even in France; not many were produced, and a lot of them were lost over the years. Being born in the 90s, these cars are a testimony to an era I wish I would have known. We once were a country that really, deeply loved automobiles; and our manufacturers once had the audacity to build unreasonable machines for enthusiasts to enjoy. That time is long gone now. It's touching to see a foreigner like Eric be so passionate about what is essentially a blast from the golden years of our automotive industry. Even letting somebody else experience the R5 brings him sheer joy. This goes to show how good we were back then, and how shameful it is that we've been letting our legacy die off for decades.

Fair play to this guy for letting Nicole drive his pride and joy off road!

I am 45, THE car of my childhood, now an adult, it's still so beautiful to look at 😍. Congrats from France 🇨🇵

Je suis Français et je vis en France. Cette voiture a bercé mon enfance, c'était un mythe bien réel ! Si vous pouvez l'essayer en version maxi Turbo, vous hallucinerez encore plus ! Bravo à vous et merci pour ce test ! J'ai fait exprès d'écrire en français, cela ne pouvait être autrement avec cette voiture ! 😉

I used to own one in the late 80's and when driving it felt like you were part of the car. The whistling of the turbo was orgasmic ...

As a french kid, this Renault was my dream car... so weird that american people know about this fantastic beast. A french legend. Your r5 turbo 2 is super beautiful ! Congratulations !!!

French here. My mechanic had one prepared for racing. He modified the commercial version to Rally B class specs with many parts sold by Renault. It shed a lot of weight and went from 250 hp to 470 hp. It was like driving a rocket powered go cart. The other iconic French sports/rally car that came out after that was the Peugeot 205 Turbo 16 valve, another tiny little zippy thing. It was actually way more successful in class B rallies than it's Renault counterpart. Back in the 80's and 90's, there were very few radars and speed traps on French highways, gas was cheap and tolls were reasonable, I would drive my Renault 21 Turbo station wagon from Paris to the Alps for skiing weekends at 180km/h. I also enjoyed riding my Ducati 851 Super Sport around the curves of Dampierre and scraping the pavement with my footrests. People loved driving and having fun cars. But the dark side was that a combination of more primitive structural engineering, no airbags, no ABS braking, the French wine making tradition and weakly enforced traffic norms lead to a very high death toll and the government cracked down with radars and speed traps everywhere. Add to this the price of gasoline, extremely expensive tolls (privatized highways) and the pleasure has been taken out of driving. Driving now has been reduced to going from point A to point B.

I'm blown away that Eric let you take it for a rip on a proper rally stage road! That is a proper car enthusiast, he knows the car can be cleaned, repaired and enjoyed again and again. My hats off to Eric and you Nicole for giving the Renault a solid thrashing!

As a french guy living now in the west of Canada, this car reminds me a lot of souvenir. I was around 20 year old when it came on the market and let me tell you it was my dream car, sadly I didn't have the money to buy one. You can find on youtube some video of Jean Ragnotti and a Renault 5 turbo. This guy was a magician with this car. Thank Nicole for this good video.

Great test drive, great car and great owner. In Europe this car is an ICON. The rally drivers of the time had balls the size of melons. RESPECT !!

I am french and born in 1981. One reason that could explain the reputation of being a widow maker is that it was relatively cheap compared to the other cars that had the same amount of horse power. So, a lot of young and inexperienced drivers could afford it, especially on second hand. Those kind of cars were also called "three climber" because... well if you miss the turn ;) ... The Peugeot 205 1.9L GTI 130 HP was also quite impressive. But the true demon was the Peugeot 205 T16 (turbo 16 soupapes), 200 HP 4X4 !

FRENCHY : Cela me fait un grand plaisir de voir les personnes d'autres pays apprécier autant notre petite française sur-vitaminé !!!! Merci de faire continuer la légende mes amis 🙂 ENGLISH :It gives me great pleasure to see people from other countries enjoying our little French girl so much !!!! Thank you for keeping the legend alive my friends 🙂

These were built by Alpine in Dieppe. The Turbo 1 an 2 are absolutely awesome - having completely stripped and original Turbo 1 - 5 years ago for restored the actual conversion was quite rudimentary underneath the panels. To watch Jean Ragnotti fling one of these around is amazing. The original wheels had Metric tyres which now cost even more than the wheels fitted to this car - hence many people fit the Gotti option. Turbo 1s also feature Aluminium roof skins. They grip and grip and grip and then your upside down! Absolutely love these - what a beautiful example - and a lovely feature you've made on it! 👍👍

Just remember, it's not a road car. It's a road RALLY car, made to run, not just a tuned up R5. And yes, it's a well known widowmaker.

Merci d"avoir mis un berret pour conduire cette incroyable petite voiture 😁 . J'ai eu la chance de monter à bord de cet engin diabolique sur les petites routes de Provence... just WAOW ! de retour à la maison, il fallait laisser "redescendre" le turbo pendant 20 à 30 minutes; incroyable souvenir, encore merci à mon "poto" pour ces sensations.

That is one iconic car, you just keep digging up gems Nicole!

see this smile when the woman is driving ? happiest owner ever, incredible

I had one in the nineties. In that time this car was insane. I was in group of 17 owners. Every month we drove to Paris and made a sport by drifting into parking places on the left side of the road. This because you could make a nice drift over the whole width of the road. We wrecked a lot of wheels. The nineties where the years I discovered French a lot.

Merci depuis la France pour avoir rendu cet hommage à cette icône de l'automobile. Et... vive Nicole !