Renault 5 Turbo
The 1980s started with a bang in the hot hatch world when Renault introduced the R5 Turbo. It looked like a regular Renault 5 compact city car, but it was a serious performance machine. This was the first time a car company presented this outrageous hot hatch with the performance and technology of a supercar.
The essence of an R5 Turbo was a mid-mounted 1.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine that delivered 160 HP. They redesigned and re-engineered the whole car to move the engine from the front hood to the space behind the driver. The rear track was much wider and it had side scoops for better cooling of the engine.
Of course, such an extreme car lost one of the main hot hatch characteristics and that is practicality. It was a basically a pure racing car built for homologation purposes. However, it deserves an important place in hot hatch history as one of the craziest hot hatches ever produced and one of the coolest cars of the 80’s.