A 60 year-old man managed to sell his mid-engine hot-hatch.
There were many great hot-hatches built over the years, but only one model can be deemed the most exceptional. Mind you, I’m only referring to the stock, unmodified ones. In a vast sea of magnificent, frisky, front-wheel-drive, lightweight European small cars, the Renault 5 Turbo sure did stand out of the crowd.
Its mid-engined, rear-wheel-drive layout was something exotic and unheard of in its particular segment and the fact that it was built as a homologation special for rally racing made it even cooler and unique. Even Peugeot thought so and spawned the T16 205 soon after.
Sure, a Clio V6 followed in the early 2000s, but the original thing remains sacred in the eyes of enthusiasts and connoisseurs.
The 5 Turbo pictured was recently sold for 72 grand on ebay. It might sound a little steep, but only 3,576 examples were produced, none of which was officially imported to the U.S. Furthermore, the car was in an original state and with only 101,700 Mm (63,000 Miles) on the clock.
Sure, it wasn’t perfect and it had a few scratches here and there, but that’s actually called patina; character.
Renault aficionados might point out the car wasn’t sporting its original wheels. Granted, those are custom-built Minilite rims, but the original TRX stock alloys were included in the car’s price. The fact of the matter is that TRX metric tires are very hard to come by and expensive, so its previous owner decided to change the whole wheel ensemble.
The car originally came with Cibie yellow lights, but they were replaced with normal lenses. But worry not, the original headlights were included together with the purchase.
Oh, and its turbocharged 1.4-litre inline-4 actually developed 185 horses, which makes the Renault a Turbo 2 model (it also says so on the sides). That doesn’t sound like much, but that amount of power on a 970 kg (2,138 lb) car, in the early 80s, was adequate, to say the least.
So, what do you guys think? Was this purchase worth $72,000?
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