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The Renault 5 Turbo – The World’s First Mid-Engined Hot Hatch Production Car

This Renault 5 Turbo 1 is a rare original Marlboro livery team car that was driven in the European Championship R5 Cup – a race series that was a supporting event to the Formula 1 races around the European continent in the 1980s as well as the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The 5 Turbo, sometimes known as the R5 Turbo, is one of the most unusual Renaults of the era, it was also the most powerful French car in production at the time of its launch, and it had been designed with one goal in mind – beating the best in the world in top flight rally competition.

The Renault 5 Turbo

At first glance the Renault 5 Turbo looks a lot like its namesake the Renault 5, though the Turbo variant has flared fenders and a far more purposeful aura. The real changes become apparent when you open the hood and find no engine.

Above Image: The Renault 5 Turbo 1 showing its largely vacant front engine bay.

Rather than the Renault 5’s front engine, front wheel drive layout the 5 Turbo has a turbocharged rear-mid engine powering the rear wheels. The rear engine compartment sits directly behind the driver and passenger, with cool air being fed to the intake and radiators via vents on the rear fender flares.

Engineers at Renault in the late 1970s knew they needed something special to compete with the mighty Lancia Stratos. The trouble was that they had very limited funding with which to develop a car. With this in mind they took the Renault 5 and shocked the motoring world by bolting an engine into the back, turning it into the world’s first mid-engined hot hatch production car.

Renault’s plan had originally to built 1,000 examples of the Renault 5 Turbo in order to homologate it for both Group 3 and Group 4. The factory would then build special race-only versions to compete against the Stratos and the rest of the World Rally Championship field.

Impressively, Jean Ragnotti won the Monte Carlo Rally on its first outing in the World Rally Championship in 1981 – the most prestigious rally event in the world.

Above Video: Jay Leno takes a look at the Renault R5 Turbo 2, the direct descendant of the Turbo 1.

Over the course of its competitive life the Renault 5 Turbo in a variety of configurations would win a slew of rallies including the Tour de Corse in 1982 and 1985, the Rally de Portugal in 1986, and the Renault 5 Maxi Turbo Superproduction won the French Supertouring Championship in 1984.

In the road-going version of the Renault 5 Turbo power was provided by a mid-mounted 1397cc (1.4 litre) Cléon-Fonte OHV engine with Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection and a Garrett AiResearch T3 turbocharger. Power output was 158 hp at 6,000 rpm with 163 lb/ft of torque at 3,250 rpm.

High performance racing versions of the car would produce upwards of 380 bhp, providing rocketship-like performance in the small, ~2,000 lb vehicle.

The production run of the Renault 5 Turbo would run from 1980 until 1986, almost 5,000 would be built across both the Turbo 1 and Turbo 2 variants, and today they’re highly sought after by collectors as possibly the world’s most extreme production hot hatch.

Above Image: The close-ratio 5-speed transmission is mounted behind the engine and feeds power to the rear wheels.

The Renault 5 Turbo 1 Shown Here

The car you see here is from 1980, the first year of production. It was dressed in period with the now legendary Marlboro livery – as shared with the Marlboro McLaren Honda F1 cars of the era.

It’s thought that this car was campaigned in period by Boy Hayje, and there is a photo in the history file showing Hayje with a Marlboro team R5 Turbo. It’s important to note that Jan Lammers and Alain Prost drove these cars at the time, and so it’s possible that all three, or any one of the three spent time behind the wheel.

After its racing career some modifications were made to the car to prepare it for street use including fitting a full set of carpets, and the Turbo 1 black leather and striped cloth seats. The car is equipped with a full roll cage, and all of the switchgear or electrics are said to be working.

Although not currently road registered the car has been put through an MOT test in the UK using the chassis number, with no advisories or defects. The car can now be road registered by the next owner if they so wish.

The car is currently being auctioned by Collecting Cars with approximately a week left to bid at the time of writing. If you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing.

Images courtesy of Collecting Cars

The post The Renault 5 Turbo – The World’s First Mid-Engined Hot Hatch Production Car appeared first on Silodrome.

from Silodrome https://silodrome.com/renault-5-turbo-hot-hatch/
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There’s a Ferrari 412 Pick-Up/Ute For Sale – $20,000 to $27,000 USD

This is a Ferrari 412 pick-up (or a ute as they would say in Australia), it was heavily modified by Elo and Will of the London Motor Group into its current form and impressively it’s entirely affordable, with a price estimate of £15,000 to £20,000 ($20,250 to $27,000 USD).

Of course it’s always worth remembering the old adage about there being nothing more expensive than a cheap Ferrari – because of the blinding maintenance and servicing costs. However Elo and Will has largely solved this problem for the next owner by removing the Ferrari V12 and installing a 5.7 litre Chevy V8.

Now usually if you remove a V12 from a Ferrari and install and American V8 you can expect two find yourself hung, drawn, and quartered by members of the local Ferrari club. In this instance you might just escape that fate as the Ferrari 412 is typically considered one of the least-liked Ferraris of its time.

The Ferrari 412

Ferrari built the 412 from 1985 till 1989, it was the fourth and final model in its line which had started with the 365 GT4 2+2 all the way back in 1972.

Above Image: The lines of the car have been preserved remarkably well given the unusual nature of the conversion.

The car was styled by Leonardo Fioravanti at Pininfarina and although it was always controversial it must be said the it did age well in the view of many – it didn’t look a whisker out of place in 1989 a full 17 years after it had first been unveiled.

The Ferrari 412 was fitted with a 4.9 litre version of the legendary Colombo V12, with double overhead cams per bank and four valves per cylinder, it was good for 335 bhp at 6,000 rpm.

Just 576 examples of the 412 were made and surviving examples haven’t come close to approaching the value of its predecessor the Ferrari 365 GT 2+2. Although it’ll never be universally loved the 412 and its siblings have been slowly gaining in popularity in recent years.

Building The Ferrari 412 Pick-Up

You may recognize the car if you’re a regular watcher of the History Channel series “Ultimate Wheels” as the Ferrari 412 pick-up was the star of one of the show’s episodes.

Above Image: The load-bay is four and a half feet long with teak panelling.

The build started when Will bought a standard 1985 Ferrari 412 for £5,000, or about $6,700 USD. That’s obviously not a lot of money even for a 412 however the engine gremlins you may expect were all largely a moot point as the Colombo V12 was coming out early in the build and never going back in.

The decision to use the 5.7 litre Chevrolet V8 wasn’t a difficult one, it would be an order of magnitude cheaper to maintain and if future owners so wished it would be easy to add performance upgrades to match or surpass the Ferrari engine’s power output.

In order to convert the 412 to a pick-up Will and Elo cut 300mm out of the roof and modified the B-pillars to match. This left room for a four and a half foot load bed in the rear – in place of the original back seats and trunk.

The hood has been modified with a double-barreled intake for the V8, which is sure to rustle some jimmies in the Ferrari purist community.

Above Image: Although it’ll doubtless upset Ferrari purists, the car looks like quite a fun daily driver.

Teak wood panelling was used in the load bed, inspiration had been taken from luxury yachts and teak has natural anti-rot tendencies which make it ideal. In order to keep the distinctive rear of the car in place they decided to forego a fold down tailgate, though due to the fact that the car is reasonably low it’s not particularly difficult to lift items over the side.

Inside the car you’ll find two bucket seats, the interior is mostly standard apart from the steering wheel and stereo, even the original transmission location has been kept.

After it was built the Ferrari pick-up spent most of its time in the London Motor Museum. It now needs a recommissioning before any driving is attempted, and the price estimate is a reasonably affordable £15,000 to £20,000 ($20,250 to $27,000 USD) as mentioned above.

If you’d like to see more or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing on Bonhams, it’s due to roll across the auction block on the 20th of March in England.

Images courtesy of Bonhams

The post There’s a Ferrari 412 Pick-Up/Ute For Sale – $20,000 to $27,000 USD appeared first on Silodrome.

from Silodrome https://silodrome.com/ferrari-412-pick-up-ute/
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For Sale: An Original Land Rover Defender SVX From “Spectre”

This is one of the Land Rover Defender SVX “Spectre” vehicles used while filming the 2015 James Bond film “Spectre”. Just 10 were built by Bowler for the Jaguar Land Rover Special Vehicle Operations division, and like all James Bond vehicles they’re highly prized by collectors.

The original Land Rover Defender 110 was deemed too familiar-looking to truly be a vehicle used by evil supervillains so Land Rover racing specialists Bowler had the job of both making them look menacing while significantly increasing performance.

Land Rover Defender SVX “Spectre” – Specifications

Far from being merely dolled up for the cameras, the 10 Land Rover Defender SVX Spectre vehicles were built to Bowler’s racing specification.

The modifications included hefty 37 inch tires on bead locker wheels, lifted suspension including Bilstein rally dampers and rose joints. The wheel arches have also been cut away and large fender flares have been added to accommodate the much larger rubber.

A full internal and external roll cage was fitted, a roof rack and Light Force spotlights were added, as well as a front nudge bar, Recaro seats with 4-point harnesses, a Warn winch, a snorkel, rocker guards, a front bash plate, and a hydraulic handbrake.

The engine bay also received significant attention, power from the original 120 bhp turbo diesel has been increased to 185 bhp, and it’s now turning out a prodigious 368 lb/ft of torque.

Just four years after the 10 Land Rover Defender SVX Spectre vehicles were built, Bowler Manufacturing was wholly acquired by Jaguar Land Rover, it now operates as the company’s in-house Skunk Works division working on custom performance parts.

More recently Bowler released the Project CSP 575, essentially a factory-backed release of the Land Rover Defender 110 station wagon, now powered by the 5.0 litre Jaguar AJ-V8 and featuring significant performance improvements throughout.

Each of the 10 Spectre Defenders had varied roles during filming and we’ve covered two of the others previously here and here. All of them were visually identical and can typically only be told apart by their license plates, however some of the cars do have telltale damage from filming.

After released in 2015 Spectre would go on to make over $880 million USD at the global box-office, making it the second highest grossing Bond film of all time behind Skyfall.

The two most memorable vehicular stars of the film are the Aston Martin DB10 and the Land Rover Defender SVX Spectre, and as you may expect both of them sell for significant money.

The Land Rover Defender SVX “Spectre” Shown Here

The small number of Spectre Defenders that have come up for sale have sold for vastly different sums, on the high end one sold for £365,500 in 2018 and on the low end a damaged example sold for €115,000.

The example you see here is chassis number SALLDHFS7AA791698 and it’s being offered without reserve by RM Sotheby’s at their Paris auction due to be held on the 13th of February.

The hammer estimate is not currently listed, and as is often the case it’ll likely depend on who is in the room (and on the phones) on the day.

If you’d like to see more or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing.

The post For Sale: An Original Land Rover Defender SVX From “Spectre” appeared first on Silodrome.

from Silodrome https://silodrome.com/land-rover-defender-svx-spectre/
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Carroll Shelby’s Dodge Omni GLHS Is For Sale

The Dodge Omni GLHS you see here was personally owned by Carroll Shelby, it’s now titled in the Carroll Hall Shelby Trust name, and it’s due to roll across the auction block in just a few days time.

For the uninitiated, the Dodge Omni GLHS (also known as the Shelby GLHS) was a version of the Dodge Omni built by Carroll Shelby’s team at his factory in Whittier, California.

Despite appearances, the Omni GLHS was said to be quicker than the legendary Shelby GT350 in the 0 to 60 mph dash taking just 6.5 seconds vs the 6.8 seconds required by the GT350.

The “GLHS” in the model name of this car is said to stand for “Goes Like Hell S’more”, it’s a reference to the earlier GLH model which was said to stand for “Goes Like Hell”.

Carroll Shelby had been brought in to work on the Dodge Omni by none other than Lee Iacocca – a man responsible for many of Ford’s hits of the 1960s who was now the CEO of Chrysler.

Iacocca’s time at Ford had seen him working with Shelby a number of times, the blue oval had sponsored much of Shelby’s work and provided the engine for his first smash hit – the Shelby Cobra 289.

Iacocca was well aware of Shelby’s ability to add a little flair to cars, and if there was ever a car in need of some spicing up it was the popular though somewhat boring Dodge Omni.

The Dodge Omni GLHS (And The GLH)

Carroll Shelby had moved with the times and by the 1980s he was more likely to go down the route of forced induction than to try to squeeze a V8 into everything – as had been his modus operandi in the 1960s.

When he was called in to modify the 1984 Dodge Omni he took a long hard look at the four-cylinder, single overhead cam, front wheel drive car and realized the best way to get it moving was to add a turbocharger, some suspension upgrades, and some other modifications that had been made to the earlier Shelby Charger.

Power was increased to 146 hp courtesy of the 7.6 PSI of boost, but thanks to the vehicle’s low curb weight of 2,200 lbs (~1,000 kgs) it proved to be a lively performer.

Two years later the 1986 Dodge Omni GLHS appeared, just 500 of these would be made, and each would be built by hand by Shelby’s men in California. The differences between the GLHS and the earlier GLH are significant, more so than the 20% power increase might lead you to believe.

Shelby and his team modified the 2.2 litre four-cylinder engine by adding the two-piece, blow-through turbo intake that was used on the Turbo II. The car used a newly developed ECU, an air-to-air intercooler, and boost was increased from 7.6 to 12 PSI courtesy of a Garrett AiResearch T03 turbocharger.

Power climbed from 146 hp to 175 hp, with 175 lb ft of torque. The suspension was modified significantly with the addition of Koni adjustable struts and shock absorbers and stiffer springs. The car now rode on 05/50R15 Eagle GT Gatorback tires fitted to Shelby Centurian alloy wheels, and a Shelby decal pack made sure people knew you weren’t driving a standard Omni.

Just 500 examples of the Shelby GLHS were ever built and despite their rarity they’ve never attracted anywhere near the same interest as many of the earlier cars to wear the Shelby name.

Interest does seem to be slowly increasing however, and events like Radwood have seen many unusual ’80s-era vehicles like this plucked from obscurity to enjoy some more time in the limelight.

The Dodge Omni GLHS Shown Here

As mentioned above the car you see here belonged to Carroll Shelby himself, so it’ll likely attract more collector attention as a result, it also has just 8,176 miles on the odometer.

This car is number 086 of 500 GLHS models produced, and it has previously received the Award of Merit at the Milwaukee Concours d’Elegance. It also appeared in the Shelby Dodge Club calendar, and it’s still wearing its original paint, logo stickers, and interior, and it comes with an extensive GLHS reference file.

If you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing on Mecum.