(Find the Renault 5 Turbo Tour De Corse on Ebay, and the Renault 5 Turbo road car on Ebay here as well as at the Tarmac Store)
If you read my Lamley Daily from July featuring the Majorette Renault Clio 16S, you’d remember I dedicated a good chunk of column space to French rally legend Jean Ragnotti and made a reference to his 1985 Tour De Corse win. And now thanks to Tarmac it’s possible for me to have a 1:64 version of his winning car in hand.
The 5 Turbo was created to tackle the might of the Group 4 Lancia Stratos in the World Rally Championship. The humdrum front-engined 5 became a mid-engined, fire spitting beast with styling input from the legendary Marcelo Gandini of Bertone. Surprisingly, at the heart of the Turbo was the omnipresent Renault “Cléon-Fonte” engine, a powerplant that in various forms had powered everything from the Alpine A110 to Romanian Dacias to Renault vans. With the help of Bosch fuel injection and a Garrett turbo the 1.4 litre inline-four was able to produce north of 160bhp. The Maxi Turbo was the zenith of the 5 Turbo line, evolving from the the Group 4 ruleset to battle in rallying’s infamous Group B category. In Maxi form the engine was enlarged to 1.5 litres and could push out over 350bhp. By the time the Maxi entered the stages it was clear that it would struggle against 4WD cars such as the Peugeot 205 T16 and Audi Quattro, however it proved an incredibly capable machine on tarmac. The Tour De Corse rally was therefore a perfect stage to show what the car was capable of.
Over the course of the rally Ragnotti and his co-driver Pierre Thimonier managed to pull out a lead of over 12 minutes ahead of second place Bruny Saby and Jean-François Fauchille in their Peugeot 205 T16. However the event is sadly remembered for different reasons after Lancia driver Attilio Bettega was killed during stage 4. The safety of Group B was immediately under scrutiny and when fellow Lancia driver Henri Toivonen was killed at the 1986 running of the Tour De Corse, the FIA were compelled to act: 1986 would be the end of Group B.
There is no doubt about it though that the Tour De Corse Maxi is probably the best remembered of all 5 Turbos and the Philips Autoradio livery is superbly cool. Tarmac have managed to do it proud in 1:64 scale.
Though my fellow Lamley writer Guillaume Maillard (@Willdiecast) will disagree with me, I think the proportions are pretty damn good and the detail is great.
Motorsport liveries are busy and made up of many small stickers and details that when shrunk down to 1:64 can look awful if done wrong. A decal a millimetre out of place can ruin a model this small. I’m therefore pleased to report no issues on the Tarmac car. The decals are top notch and all in the right places, and there’s a small sheet of waterslide decals included to apply the Rothmans branding to the model, though on mine I have yet to do this.
The only criticism that I have about this model is the wheels. They’re a hair’s width too big, and the tyre to wheel ratio doesn’t look right at all compared to a real R5 Maxi. This becomes apparent when you look at Tarmac’s version of the road going 5 Turbo.
The road going 5 Turbo was built in two tranches, with the first batch of 400 being made to comply with Group 4 homologation rules. Built at the Alpine factory in Dieppe, the first cars featured unique lightweight body panels and Bertone seats as well as other unique parts. The following Turbo 2 model shared more parts with the standard R5 range to keep manufacturing costs down. At the time of launch the Turbo was the fastest French production car with a top speed of 120mph and a 0-100kmh time of 6.9 seconds. 4987 of both variants were sold before production ended in 1986.
Tarmac’s version is a pleasant looking miniature but is really spoiled by the wheels. In road car form they look even more out of proportion than they do on the Ragnotti car. And it’s a damn shame because otherwise it’s rather good.
The colour really pops and there’s a well replicated version of the Turbo’s lairy colored interior visible through the windows. It also comes on an incredibly cool base.
Put both cars together and they make a great pair to photograph.
Before I forget to mention: both of my examples roll; the Ragnotti car smooth and well but the road car barely. Whether this makes a difference to your collecting habits or not they’re definitely a good pair to have. Fans of Group B look no further than the Maxi. But fans of the road car may want to wait until Inno bring out there version…
Instagram: @alex_the_hoarder
Facebook: facebook.com/alexthehoarder
Reddit: u/alexthehoarder
Twitter: @AlexTheHoarder