The 5 Turbo can be bought in GT4's and 5's used car lots. At 2,138 pounds, it is a little bit lighter than the real-life version was pegged at (2,180 pounds), but this is okay. Could be just the difference between a dry (no fluids in car) and fully-weighted automobile. In GT4, a fully-lightened car falls to a Kei van-like 1944 pounds. I have yet to fully lighten my GT5 car. I'm afraid to, actually. We'll find out why in a moment.  

Now, let's drive for God's sake. I never got to drive a Le Car back when I was in high school, and  by the time I dropped out of college (1988) most of these Frenchmobiles were already off to the junkyards: rust, unreliability with repair options, and Renault's out-of-business American contact (American Motors) having doomed the Le Car to an early extinction here.     

You have to be careful with this one, despite its lowish power, whether its on comforts or sport tires. This car can fool us at times, sometimes during the mildest of turns. Predictability and stability are two things a Renault 5 Turbo can seem to possess for a few moments, then all a sudden everything changes, the rear is losing traction while the front struggles to keep the line it was maintaining flawlessly only a moment ago. It happens in the wink of an eye.  

This is exactly what occured during that first curve at Tsukuba, before I even officially started Lap 1. Since it seemed there was no danger of any traction-loss, I initially tamed the throttle for entry-corner accuracy. The 5 turned in neutrally, with a slight tendency for front-end grabbing, rather than understeer. Hmm...guess I'm not going fast enough. So I add more throttle, and at first everything is okay. And then suddenly, it's all over! The 5 Turbo has tricked me, its rear wanting to trade places with the front!  Granted, it does not do so; quick reflexes save the day in this case. But I imagine if I were a new driver I would have easily wound up in the grass, or on a wall.

I also drove this car in the Tous France Championnat. Things got interesting at high-speed Sarthe, as I figured they would. I'm not even talking about the turns, I am talking about the Mulsanne Straight. Even while trying to go 'straight', this portion of the track had my 5 Turbo dancing all over the road!  Here I am, trying to simply drive in a single line, yet I'm also having to make constant little steering corrections to faithfully achieve this. And curbs? That's a whole other issue. A curb which merely lifts another car's fenders up and down can become something to truely fear in a 5 Turbo. As the 5 slips and jack-knifes over such curbing, it's hard not to think of macaroni, as it slips and slides right out of a pot and into your dish. Macaroni can be fun to eat, but driving on it? ....or any other sort of pasta? Well, that's not so fun.   

Bottom line: not a car for beginners, despite its low power. And if you're not a beginner, yet you're dealing with sliding, spins, and even some wrecks, don't give up on the Renault 5 in desperation!  No, be persistent. Mid-engine Clio Sport V6s happen to be very mercurical cars to drive too, and by this I mean they often offer plenty of options for on-the-spot cornering, not just one or two. Once we start the tuning, the Renault 5 Turbo can become a Clio Sport Junior, much lighter and perhaps more fun as well.

First step ... try installing a limited-slip differential. There ya go. At Tsukuba, this bit slashed those lap time by nearly an entire second, in my case. I also recently used one at Eiger Norwand with a setting of 11/19/15 before taking on the Amateur Series European Hot Hatch races. LSD helped a lot with out-of-corner traction, especially. I could now give lots of gas out of Eiger's 4 deadly hairpins in 2nd gear with minimal chances for a spin. Good.

But the thing is, this car never seems to feel quite right. If you're looking for perfection with this one, you might as well keep looking. LSD tuning can often add problems which weren't there before. The Turbo felt improved out of those hairpins at this track, but turn-in felt noticably slower into them, even with that weak initial torque rating. I could compensate for this by flicking the steering hard at the right moment (non-ABS brakes helped me get the Turbo into some tighter angles), but notice with a Clio Sport V6, a limited-slip would probably not be needed at all, not at this level of racing, anyways.  

During the longer right curve before the tunnel, the car still felt a little squeamish, but it wasn't nearly as bad as before LSD tuning was applied. I still couldn't apply full throttle during certain longer curves, at either Eiger or Rome. But anyways, if you're having problems with the 5 Turbo, a limited-slip is where you should start your quest for better handling.       

One of the major differences bewteen GT4 and GT5 happens to be with braking, of course, and I'm not talking about using ABS or not using it. Lighter mid-engine cars like the 5 Turbo often suffered from longer brake distances in GT4 than lighter front-drives. Check out the testing results near the top of this page: the GT4 test car went from 100 to zero mph in 4.31 seconds. This sounds great (compared to GT5) but it's actually pretty bad. ALL mid-engine cars (lighter ones especially) posted miserable results in comparison to FFs in GT4. This includes cars which should exhibit phenomenol braking, like the Lotus Elise. 

PD seems to have fixed this because at about 5.5 seconds from 100 to zero mph, the 5 Turbo is a little below average. "Average" in this game is closer to 6 seconds for lighter cars with small tires. I'm noticing this discrephancy during races, too. I'm able to brake this car a little later than some other older models would tolerate. Most braking must be applied in a straight line, of course, but trail-braking can also be tried here and there.   

But don't trail-brake too late!  With no ABS to assist, this automobile can't help but get a little too sideways on entry. But I'm also noticing there is a bit of leeway before the actual emergency-mode starts. Sometimes while braking in, the 5 almost seems to give a little warning (in the form of edgy movements and a little too much tire squeal), before it starts to finally jack-knife sideways. In other words, if the car is starting to lose it a little, there's still a chance we can still catch it before it falls.

Overall, the Le Car may have failed here in America, but in the rest of the world (and in Gran Turismo), we can make this one a shining star, the way it ultimately became for awhile in its heyday.