Renault R5 Turbo: Pocket rocket
a fibreglass bonnet and front and rear mudguards to trim weight. Those rear mudguards flare aggressively outwards — you can’t afford to forget how much wider the tail is when you’re manoeuvring — and its gaping grilles feed air to the intercooler, brakes and engine compartment with an electric fan cutting in when needed. “It doesn’t overheat, it runs cool, and it was fantastic around the Coromandel.”
Benbrook thinks this is the only R5 in the country. “There were others but they went back overseas and there are a couple of lookalikes with Evo motors.”
He’s had his for about five years, “I saw it on Trade Me, I hadn’t been hunting one down. It was a Japanese import, and I thought about it. I had a Renault Alpine GTA, it was a private sale and I swapped that, and cash.”
Peter loves sports cars. “I’ve competed in SCANZ — NZ Sports cars they call it — and won the championship in 2000- 2001 in a home- built sports car.” He also used to rally as a co driver, and the rally heritage was part of the appeal. Luckily the car was “… in this condition. I’ve just had to do details. It’s missing the spoiler, I have to do mounts for it.
“I changed the steering wheel, which wasn’t the original and was cracking. The wheels would have been fitted in Japan, they were metric, so it was hard to get tyres, so it has 15s. The guy before put narrower ones on as they rubbed the guards. I fitted some new carpets, too.”
He’s thinking of doing a Targa in it. If he gets time — like many of our subjects he’s not short of projects: among the automotive tangle in his garage there’s an Alpine, a Buckler, I spot a motorbike, and he points out various boxes holding parts and bits for a 1918 Oldsmobile “project” and a 1959 Formula Junior frame, built in Seattle and hanging from the garage roof, which also requires a total restoration.
Peter says he does test his wife’s patience with the number of cars, “Luckily she understands my affliction.” She’d have to, the garage is too packed with projects to fit the daily- driver in. “Everyone knows I never finish them, I keep buying them. They’ll all get finished though — if I live to 150.”