Now that we’ve seen the brand new Renault 5 idea, one query bubbles to the floor quicker than all: what took them so lengthy? It seems to be so ineffably proper, so knowledgeable by its previous but fastened on the longer term, that you just surprise why they didn’t have the concept years in the past.
The reply, I believe, is Luca de Meo. He’s the lately appointed CEO of Renault who in a former life was answerable for a factor referred to as the Fiat 500, on whose shoulders the fortunes of all the Fiat model have appeared to relaxation these previous 13 years. So now the items fall into place.
The ocean of purple prose on which the reimagining of the 5 got here bodyboarding into shore speaks not solely of the fluency of its execution but additionally of the enduring love for a French icon that was born sufficiently way back to be thought to be a basic however died sufficiently lately to be remembered. Which is a really neat deal with.
And I keep in mind it greater than most: the automobile I drove to work on my very first day at Autocar in 1988 was my very own Renault 5 GT Turbo. However as quickly because it was clear that I’d in some way cling to a job testing automobiles, it was clearly redundant and obtained offered. And the unusual factor is that I’ve actually not thought a lot about it since.
I owned three sizzling hatches earlier than I joined the journal: that 5 GT Turbo, a Mk1 Volkswagen Golf GTI and a Peugeot 205 GTi, and I’ve since considered these final two nearly continuously. They’ve turn into genuinely essential, landmarks within the evolution of satisfying motoring. The Renault? Not a lot.
However the curious factor is that, on the time, I used to be fairly clear that the 5 GT Turbo was each the quickest and most enjoyable of the three, but in some way it has dropped out of my easy-recall reminiscence. And off the general public street: there are greater than 1100 examples of the 205 GTi nonetheless registered within the UK. The 5 GT Turbo? Simply 287. Time for a reappraisal? With the launch of a brand new 5, there can be none higher.
It’s extraordinary how the mind remembers. That is the primary time that I’ve sat in a 5 GT Turbo in 33 years, but I didn’t should search for something. For 3 many years, my mind has clung to a couple traces of code simply in case I ought to ever once more must find the choke lever, or keep in mind to twist the left-hand stalk to activate the lights, or know that the bonnet hinges on the entrance, not the rear. I nonetheless know precisely how the gearbox goes to really feel, how the engine will sound, even the gearing of the defiantly unassisted steering.
But it surely feels flimsier than ever. This isn’t as a result of I’ve forgotten how inexactly these automobiles had been constructed and from which mediocre supplies, simply that it issues extra to me now and the world has moved on whereas it hasn’t. At the same time as an occasional ‘basic’ automobile used for leisure functions, its construct high quality would irritate me – and possibly scare me, too.
I as soon as was in an accident involving a 5 that drove on the flawed facet of the street right into a 5 Collection that I had already delivered to a halt. Mercifully the crash did nothing to the driving force aside from rouse him from his slumber, however the Renault penknifed, leaving its roof on its again seats, which might have had calamitous penalties had anybody been there. The BMW? Its airbags didn’t even deploy.
