RENAULT

Renault 5 Turbo 3E: the famous French ''fat ass'' electrified with 500 hp

The Renault 5 Turbo 3E is the “toy” that the French brand was missing to reinforce and spice up its line of electric vehicles. After the R5 E-Tech, an electric utility vehicle with power between 90 and 150 hp and prices ranging from $25,000 to $33,000, Renault will soon launch — but with no official date yet — the 5 Turbo 3E, with just rear-wheel drive, which mounts two battery-powered motors that add up to more than 500 hp.

The new French supercar comes in the wake of a prototype with the same name revealed at the 2022 Paris Motor Show and, to get an idea of ​​what the standard 5 Turbo 3E might be like to drive, you can take the opportunity to “savour” the video of the prototype we publish below. The bet on the new supercar is so great that Renault produced the documentary Anatomy of a Comeback, now available on Amazon Prime Video, where you can see the 5 Turbo 3E.

The model is based on the new R5 E-Tech, but swaps one engine at the front, with a maximum of 150 hp, for two at the back that should exceed 500 hp (the brand has not yet revealed the precise value). Remembering that the R5 Turbo from the 80s extracted 160 hp in the series version and even the most powerful version, developed for the World Rally Championship, the 5 Turbo Maxi (Group B) did not exceed 340 hp, with both being well below the power of this electric successor.

The Renault 5 Turbo 3E also uses wider tracks, but, unlike the 1980 model, care was taken to ensure that the rear track was not much wider than the previous one, to avoid difficulties in terms of handling balance. The model exudes aggressiveness, with a splitter at the front, wing and extractors at the back and air intakes on the sides that must be mainly cosmetic. Still, it mounts 275/35 tires on 20″ wheels at the rear (and a slightly narrower one at the front) in order to achieve the traction needed to surpass 100 km/h after just 3.5 seconds (the 1980 R5 Turbo needed 6.9 seconds), making it the fastest production Renault ever. 

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