Petrolicious, the creator of high quality, authentic movies and articles for traditional automotive fans, has launched its newest video, that includes automotive devotee Juan Carlos Fernandez who labored exhausting to revive the Group B rally legend of his desires.
After a few years away, the Petrolicious web site and YouTube Channel has been just lately rebooted by duPont REGISTRY Group, and new movies are actually dropping each Friday. Petrolicious celebrates the innovations, the personalities, and the aesthetics that ignite a collective lust for nice automotive machines, and it seeks to tell, entertain, and encourage its group of aficionados and pique the curiosity of those that have been lacking out.
At present, Petrolicious takes up Juan’s story…
It’s akin to touchdown a dream job you lied via your tooth to get. You stroll in on day one, staring down a pile of tasks you aren’t remotely certified for. The job? Managing a automotive with a 1.5-liter turbo engine operating round 2 bar of increase mounted the place the groceries used to go. No airbag, no abs, no coaching wheels. Simply determine it out earlier than you get fired or, on this case, despatched backward via a guardrail. Your new boss, (who ignores OSHA and HR) the Renault R5 Maxi Turbo, expects outcomes.
Juan Carlos Fernandez is aware of what it’s like to begin from nothing. In 1963, his household fled Cuba with an toddler Juan in tow, abandoning their residence, their belongings, every part that they had ever recognized. They landed in Puerto Rico with no roadmap, simply the necessity to survive. His mother and father labored tirelessly to rebuild, instilling in him the type of work ethic that doesn’t ask for shortcuts.
By the point he was a teen, automobiles had his full consideration. His cousins had been within the auto enterprise, and he scraped collectively no matter he might to purchase his first automotive, a $200 challenge. One automotive became two. Two became three. The hustle by no means stopped. If he wanted extra money, he labored tougher. A long time later, that drive became Ferco Motors, the dealership he owns right now.
A good friend as soon as advised him the R5 was “so ugly it’s stunning,” however to Juan, it was simply stunning. It had character, presence, and the type of uncooked, unfiltered driving expertise that fashionable automobiles have misplaced. It wasn’t constructed for straight-line pace or easy efficiency, it was constructed to be pushed exhausting, to demand one thing from the driving force. And that’s precisely what drew him to it.
The R5 is a product of Renault’s obsession with Group B, the golden period of rally racing the place producers constructed essentially the most excessive machines they may get away with. The FIA required producers to construct a restricted variety of road-going variations to compete, and Renault’s reply was to take their humble financial system hatch and reimagine it into one thing wild. Prone to boiling issues down, and for the sake of brevity we’ll simply say the engine was moved to the again, the physique was widened, and the ability was turned up. The consequence was the R5 Turbo.
That automotive made its competitors debut in 1980 on the Tour de Corse, a rally recognized for its tight, twisting tarmac levels. French driver Jean Ragnotti piloted the automotive and, regardless of being up towards way more developed machines, confirmed its potential. The actual breakthrough got here the next 12 months when Ragnotti drove the R5 Turbo to an outright victory on the 1981 Monte Carlo Rally. It was undoubtedly good, however… was extra attainable?
Enter the R5 Maxi Turbo, the final word model, the ultimate boss. It was constructed to compete with the Audi Quattro and the Peugeot 205 T16. Positively a tricky crowd. Renault introduced in Bozian Racing, a French motorsport engineering agency recognized for squeezing each final drop of efficiency out of small-displacement engines. On this case, they pulled 350 horsepower out of Renault’s 1.5L engine. They made the automotive stiffer and elevated the work aerodynamics had been doing. It had some success in competitors and proved its mettle on tarmac, however as all-wheel-drive rivals took over, its time on the grime and within the highlight light.
Juan’s R5 wasn’t excellent when he purchased it. It had been sitting, uncared for, and the primary drive was a disappointment. No increase, a failing clutch, only a reminder that even the greats want work, and time spares nobody, and no factor. However with the correct experience, the correct individuals, and loads of effort, it got here again to life, a worthy tribute to the Group B legend.
Juan Carlos Fernandez didn’t get right here by taking the simple means. He got here from nothing, labored for every part, and by no means requested for a shortcut. The R5 doesn’t give one both. It simply desires you to indicate up for work.
