2022 marks a big milestone for a little car; the Renault 5 is 50. Being a January arrival, it’s already into its sixth decade by the time you’re reading this. As one of the biggest hit records of 1972 almost said, it wears it well.
Let’s rewind to the late 1960s. As usual, France was a politically troubled place. President de Gaulle had been pushing through economic reforms and embarking on his “politics of grandeur”, notably demonstrated by testing hydrogen bombs in the Pacific. 1968 witnessed widespread civil unrest, not only with the Paris student protests but also in wildcat strikes across large swathes of the economy. Things got serious enough for there to be a sniff of revolution and for a while de Gaulle went into hiding in Germany. Although he would win the emergency election called on 30th May, he was fatally wounded and his days were numbered. By summer of 1969, de Gaulle had fallen and his former Prime Minister Georges Pompidou took over as President, bringing a more modernist and global outlook, keen to build bridges abroad. 1970s France would be a more moderate and optimistic place.
Renault had spent the 1960s undertaking their own programme of modernisation in order to dig their way out of a deep financial hole. The Renault 4, staple of peasant transportation, had been launched in 1961 as a rival to the Citroen 2CV but it also gave Renault inroads into Africa and South America. However, Renault’s ambitions stepped up a gear in 1966 with the arrival of the R16. The R16 was a striking car, all sharply folded metal from its pointy beak right back to its hatchback tail. Hatchbacks were nothing new in small cars but in the medium sector it was big news. For 1968 came the smaller Renault 6, which was visually a halfway house between the R4 and an R16. Look at the Renault 6 out of the corner of one eye and you’ll see a few hints in the design language for what would follow.
Renault needed to revisit their small car offer. The Renault 4 was rugged and utilitarian in a typically French way, but it was hardly chic. Renault saw a window of opportunity to get one over on their rivals by launching a genuinely modern small hatchback. In order to generate crucial export sales the new car would also have to appeal to buyers beyond French borders, including the right hand drive British market. De Gaulle would have hated the thought of that, the mad old bigot. The ambition was firmly supported by Renault’s top brass but in the absence of an official programme the story goes that young stylist Michel Boué started work on a design proposal in his spare time. When his activity came to the attention of Renault’s Head of Planning, Bernard Hanon, it was only a short time before the Boué sketches were presented to CEO Pierre Dreyfus and “Project 122” was green-lit.
Boué had drawn a three-door hatchback body without passenger doors to the rear seats, which was unusual for the French market. Whilst other aspects of his design were positively received, the lack of five doors caused some concern as it was felt it could reduce the car’s market appeal. A further sensitivity arose from the technical collaboration agreement that Renault had with Peugeot at the time. Peugeot were working on what would become the 104, the development of which was following parallel timelines to the new Renault. Wary of sabotaging each other’s growth, it was agreed that the 104 would forego a hatchback if Renault stuck to three doors only. Whilst this was agreed, behind the scenes Peugeot readied their hatchback option for a planned facelift and Renault hedged their bets with a five door proposal. Both of these “back up plans” came to fruition soon enough.
With the aesthetic design proposal advanced, consideration turned to the mechanical side. Renault’s financial situation was improving but the nationalised company wasn’t awash with spare cash. The development team would have to make do and mend to a certain extent, but the use of proven mechanicals also reduced the inherent risks of being too radical. Existing four cylinder OHV engines were taken from the R4. The engines were old fashioned pushrods of 36bhp 782cc and 44bhp 956cc capacities but they were deemed fit for purpose. Unusually for a 1970s small car, they would be longitudinally mounted behind the front axle with the gearbox hung out front. This necessitated an unwieldy rod gear linkage, routed over the top of the engine and operated by a dash mounted shifter. The weight of the gearbox meant heavier steering and tendency towards understeer, but not to an unacceptable extent. It was a compromise for sure, but financially driven.
Suspension wise, a new beam rear axle was originally proposed but it was found that carryover Renault 4 components gave a better ride. Double-wishbones and longitudinal torsion bars were used at the front, while the rear axle was suspended by trailing arms and transverse torsion bars. The rear axle set up would be responsible for giving the car a slightly different wheelbase left to right, in common with most front wheel drive Renaults of the time. As was the style for French motoring, the ride was set to be soft and supple, great for choppy backroads and decaying city streets but meaning dramatic lean angles when pressing on.
Although Project 122 wouldn’t be a revolution under the skin, the visual impact would create a stir. In an era when chrome detailing was the expected norm, Boué envisaged a shape so clean it didn’t even allow for door handles. The gently curved sides were confidently unadorned and the front end revealed only the suggestion of an intake grille. Door releases were accessed via a pressed recess in the quarter panels and the rear light clusters were set high up the rear corners. Most striking was the lack of traditional protruding bumpers, achieved in collaboration with chemicals firm Rhône-Poulen. Created using a cocktail of reinforced polyester pre-impregnated with fibreglass, Project 122’s nose and tail were protected by ribbed, self-coloured integral bumpers. Capable of shrugging off impacts up to 7 km/h without deformation, they were the ideal addition in a country where touch-parking is a national sport. In time, similar ribbed protectors would be added to the door and quarter panels too. The modernist approach extended to the airy cabin, only dated by the dash mounted gearshifter, although this would be replaced by a more conventional floor mounted cable shifter within a year.
The new car was ready for launch in January 1972. The Renault 5 was born, but Michel Boué would not be there to see the fruits of his labour, having died from cancer a few months earlier at the age of 36. His missed its tremendous success, immediately well received as France’s best selling car and runner up European Car Of The Year 1973, second only to the Audi 80. For Renault, the revenue was a vital boost and paved the way for further investment in new models, however few matched the success of the first generation R5. The company even made inroads into the American market, selling it first through direct sales under the Le Car name, and then under an alliance with AMC.
At home in France, the tuning potential of the 5 was spotted by Alpine, building on the success of the warm-hatch TS model. The officially sanctioned Alpine hot hatch beat the 1976 Golf GTi to market by a couple of months, and more fun was to come in 1982 when they turbocharged it. However, the ultimate Mk1 R5 variant arrived in 1980 in a form nobody was expecting. Crammed into a heavily modified body, the Renault 5 Turbo featured a mid-mounted 1,397cc inline 4, fuelled by Bosch K-Jetronic with a Garrett T3 turbocharger for 158bhp of thrust. With a Renault 30 transmission driving the rear wheels and rear suspension derived from the Alpine A310, it was bonkers. Built for rallying as a response to the Lancia Stratos, it immediately won the 1981 Monte Carlo in the hands of Gallic-lunatic Jean Ragnotti. Astoundingly for a homologation special, a total of 1,820 Turbo 1 and 3,167 Turbo 2s were manufactured during a six-year production run, the later variant being a cost reduced but equally effective car.
Renault got their money’s worth out of the original design but by 1985 the heavily revised Supercinq was ready for the showrooms. The original car had few direct competitors back in 1972, but by the 1980s all the mainstream manufacturers were staring Renault straight in the face. The Supercinq was considerably larger than the outgoing car and adopted the transverse engines and McPherson strut front layout from the Renaults 9 and 11. Styled by Marcello Gandini, the body was a clever update of the original car, cleaner and more modern but still unmistakably Renault 5. A turbocharged performance variant was again offered, with the GT Turbo going up against the 205 GTi to good effect. The real volume lay in the more basic car of course, and that’s where much of the charm lay. The Supercinq was always great utilitarian transport and I should know; we had two in succession in our family around the time I learned to drive. Although I took enormous liberties out on the best of the sweeping moorland roads, the Renaults’ safe handling is a key contributor to me still being here today. When we upgraded from an 1108cc carb fed TL to a 1390cc Campus with monopoint fuel injection, it felt like Ragnotti’s competition chariot to my impressionable teenage senses.
I now read that in a move that will make future internet searches considerably more frustrating, the Renault 5 nameplate is coming back as an EV in 2024. No doubt I’ll be grumpily dismissive of the new pretender but it proves there is still value in the brand. 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of the car’s launch, but it also marks 25 years since the end of production in 1996, which is pleasingly numerically symmetrical. No doubt we’re due for a resurgence of interest between now and 2024, and that can’t be a bad thing. Happy 50th, Renault 5.
