This car, Lot 104, sold for $34,623 (£26,450), including buyer’s premium, at Bonhams Cars’ Chichester, U.K., auction, on April 13 2025.
This is an R5, but it is very different from the first-gen version, sold in America as “Le Car” following Renault’s tie-up with AMC in 1979. Struggling to sell cars in the U.S., the French maker needed the market exposure, and domestic AMC needed the money.
At first, Renault bought a 22% stake. That union gave us the unlovely Alliance, a reworked R9 — which even in Europe nobody remembers, though it was Europe’s Car of The Year in 1982. This marriage of convenience ended in 1987, when Chrysler bought out Renault’s then-49% controlling interest, primarily to snap up the cherry in a very mediocre chocolate box: Jeep.
Le Car was R4-derived, complete with a longitudinally mounted driveline, placing the gearbox in front of the engine. The odd rear suspension featured differing-length wheelbases on each side in order to stagger the transverse torsion bars so they didn’t have to occupy the same space. It sounds bizarre, but hardly anyone noticed. In fact, Renault got away with it for years, on several models including the 16.
Take two
The second-generation “Supercinq” R5, as here, was a clean-sheet design (by Marcello Gandini, no less!) and sold from 1984. The only carry-over apart from the name was the ancient “Cléon” wet-liner four-banger, which in this 1,397-cc form had earlier been boosted to a grenade-like 160 hp and mid-mounted to power the barking R5 Turbo, a completely different homologation-special animal made from 1980 to ’84.
Here in the GT Turbo, sold from February 1985 until 1991 (when it was superseded by the Clio Williams) it’s also a turbocharged pushrod 1.4. This time, in milder 115-hp form using a Garrett T2 blowing through the carburetor and transversely mounted, keeping with “supermini” convention. There are still trailing arms under the rear, sprung by a simple-looking but subtly sophisticated split-torsion-bar/torsion beam arrangement — and the wheelbase is the same on both sides, which at least gives body-kit manufacturers an easier time.
French underdog
The phase-2 version from 1989 brought a few detail changes and a couple more horsepower, and these weigh just 850 kg (1,875 lbs). That confers super-sharp responses to go with the keen steering, but they feel fragile today. As with all small hatchbacks of the time, you really wouldn’t want to get wrapped up in an accident in one.
The GT Turbo was a natural competitor to its compatriot — the incomparable Peugeot 205 GTI. Though it was about as quick and handled tidily (lifting off quells the understeer but it doesn’t hang out its behind as willingly as a 205 can), the problem with the Pug is that it is, well, incomparable. The 205 boasted a chassis of a communicative fluidity never since quite repeated from the same manufacturer, or many others. That’s just one of the reasons why R5 GT Turbo prices have tended to lag behind Peugeot’s immortal GTI. The 205 was also sold for longer, so there are more of them on offer.
Lately, the GT Turbo has been catching up somewhat, and the best prices, inevitably, are achieved by stock cars. Being turbo-boosted means these are easy prey to any “tuner” who can mess with a wastegate, and this was never a very sophisticated setup, lacking even fuel injection. They feature a fan that blows on the carb to try to slow fuel vaporization, but at least the phase-2 cars, as here, got a water-cooled turbo.
A rare survivor
This one presents as tidily and nicely stock, in the popular Tungsten color. With one owner from new, it would seem unlikely that it was ever modified, but who knows. It’s had some unspecified restoration work and has been stored for the past three years. Any needed “recommissioning” as noted by the catalog shouldn’t take much more than changing the fluids and aged tires, as there’s no cam belt to change, and if it needs brake pads or even a starter motor, they’re cheap.
Though average cars are under $20k, the highish price here isn’t without precedent. U.K.-based Iconic Auctioneers sold a 1989 Raider edition earlier in 2025 for £25,875 ($34k), and before that a white 1990 example for £20,250 ($27k) in March 2022. The highest price seen so far is €41,660 ($45k) for a low-miles black phase-1 car with Aguttes in France in April 2022, which is well into the best 205 GTI 1.9 territory — though in the same sale, a 6,000-km 205 GTI 1.9 reached almost $90k.
I’d suggest that prices for the best cars are high because there are few good survivors. These were so cheap at one time that most were thrashed, abused and discarded, leaving the few decent ones looking like viable alternatives to the ascending 205. According to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority in England, and www.howmanyleft.co.uk, there were 250 of these on the road in the U.K. at the end of 2024, and 1,300 had Statutory Off Road Notifications filed, meaning they are likely inoperable project cars. The limited-edition run-out Raider models — all blue — appear to be worth no more than the rest of them. On past form, and given that this sale was conducted right after President Trump’s shiny new tariffs sent tremors through markets worldwide, we’ll call this well sold.
Classic French “hot hatches” are becoming more collectible in the United States of late. There is a new R5 in Europe just now, and a reboot of an old name might be heightening interest in the old model — especially as the new car is electric, and unlikely to find favor in the current administration.
