A French Oddity: Renault Sport Spider Turns 25 Years Old

Renault experimented with all sorts of cars throughout its 122-year history, yet not many were as quirky as the Sport Spider, which recently blew 25 candles off its birthday cake.

The first street-legal model to officially bear the Renaultsport moniker, it started life as a racer with Formula 1 technology, but fans wanted a variant that they could drive on public roads, so the company put it into production.

Between 1995 and 1999, 1,493 units were manufactured at the Alpine plant in Dieppe, France, which is where the modern-day A110 comes to life. All of them were built on an aluminum chassis and boasted plastic composite bodywork, which not only did wonders for the weight, but also ensured rust was not an issue.

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The Renault Sport Spider tipped the scales at only 930 kg (2,050 lbs). It was 3,795 mm (149.4 in) long, 1,830 mm (72 in) wide and 1,250 mm (49.2 in) tall, including the roll bar. A windscreen was optional, but other amenities like power steering, radio and even heating, were simply not available.

Stripped down to the essentials compared to other sports cars of the ‘90s, the Sport Spider had a 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine placed behind the seats, which was rated at 145 HP (147 PS / 108 kW). The output was channeled to the rear axle via the five-speed manual transmission, a setup that resulted in 6.9 seconds for the 0-100 km/h (0-62 mph) sprint and a 215 km/h (134 mph) top speed.