A Renault 5 Turbo 2 type 8221 has just been sold for $156,000 in the United States, or just over €147,000. This is a record for a Turbo 2 but not for a road Turbo, not to mention the racing models whose rating reaches peaks.
In Los Angeles, California (USA), a Renault 5 Turbo has just been auctioned on the site Bring A Trailer for $156,000, or approximately €147,000, proof that the legendary diamond sports car has not finished panicking the counters of collectors, even speculators. You suspect it, the copy in question here is a particularly rare versionespecially since the R5 Turbo do not run the streets in the United States.
A rare road-going Group B Turbo
The car of the day is a black Renault 5 Turbo 2 type 8221 from 1985, a road model of which only 200 were produced with a view to homologating the car for Group B rallying. It differs from the standard Turbo 2 by its more powerful engine, thanks to a cylinder capacity of 1,397 cm3 at 1432cm3as well as its weight-saving aluminum roof.
The car crossed the Atlantic in 1985 and belonged to the late Bruce Brown, documentary filmmaker to whom we owe the film The Endless Summer who immersed himself in the culture of surfing in 1966. It was stored a little over 20 years ago, and only saw the light of day again in 2020 when it was acquired by the person who has just parted with it.
Meteoric rise for the rating of the R5 Turbo
Before putting it up for auction, the seller of the car refurbished the brake and injection circuits, replaced the spark plugs and fluids, and repaired the car radio. The counter shows 32,138 miles, or 51,721 km.
Its sale price is a record for a Turbo 2, but a Turbo 1 sold by Artcurial in Monaco in July 2021 did “better” with €152,576, the highest amount to date for an R5 Turbo road car. However, some racing models are traded for much more astronomical sums, such as the Maxi Turbo Group B ex-Carlos Sainz which sold for €667,520 in February 2021 or a few Group 4s which have greatly exceeded €300,000. To get an idea of the soaring price of the R5 Turbo, we will remember, for example, that in 2020, another 8221 in excellent condition was sold for just over €60,000 by Artcurial, and that in the 2000s a good Turbo 2 was worth less than €20,000still at Artcurial.
