Our 10 Favourite Things In Renault’s Secret Classic Collection

Last week, we were whisked off to Paris on the Eurostar. Not for a day of sightseeing, though, but to pile into a minibus and visit a former Renault factory on an industrial estate on the city’s outskirts. Never say this job isn’t glamorous.

The main purpose of the visit was to get up close and personal with the new Renault 5 Turbo 3E, but it was quite hard to concentrate on that because Renault had also cherry-picked a selection of the historic models it looks after as part of its 800-strong Classic Collection.

Besides being trotted out for events, these cars aren’t normally viewable to the public, so it was a rare glimpse at the considerable effort the company has expended in preserving its 126-year history.

Here, then, is a selection of historic Renaults you don’t often get to see if you’re not one of the small group of individuals tasked with managing this collection.

Renault Floride

The Floride – or the Caravelle, as it was known in Britain – was essentially a French VW Karmann Ghia: a suave sports car sitting on the rear-engined underpinnings of a humble family car, in this case the Renault Dauphine.

The word ‘sports’ is doing some heavy lifting here – the biggest engine you could get in the Floride was a 1.1-litre four-cylinder with a whole 55bhp. Pretty, though, isn’t it?

Renault 8 Gordini

The R8 Gordini was the hot hatchback of its time, a time before actual hatchbacks were really a thing. Renault tuner Gordini (which would later be folded into the Renaultsport brand) took the boxy little Renault 8 family car and fettled its 1.1-litre engine to produce 89bhp.

This later version has the 94bhp, 1.3-litre engine introduced in 1967 – more power than you were getting out of a Porsche 912 at the time, and the same amount as the top version of the contemporary Alpine A110. Also, stripes.

Renault 11 Turbo

Nope, the 5 Turbo wasn’t the only turbocharged hot hatch Renault made in the 1980s. The bigger and – let’s be real – much less fondly remembered 11 also got the treatment in 1983.

Later cars had 113bhp from their 1.4-litre turbo four-pot, putting it in a similar ballpark to the eight-valve versions of the Mk2 VW Golf GTI and Peugeot 309 GTi. Those naturally aspirated cars didn’t have the right to wear big ‘Turbo’ graphics on their flanks, though, which gives the 11 Turbo an upper hand in ’80s performance car bingo.

Renault 21 Baccara Turbo

We can’t imagine that Renault would go to the effort in 2025 of building a turbocharged sports saloon to take on the likes of the Audi S5 and BMW M340i, but that’s pretty much the equivalent of what the 21 Turbo was tasked with doing in the ’80s.

Under the bonnet is a 2.0-litre turbocharged four-pot with 173bhp, which gave the 21 Turbo more than respectable performance for its day: 0-62mph in 7.8 seconds, and a 138mph top speed. On the inside of this posh Baccara version, meanwhile, is some of the softest, squishiest and, erm, greyest leather you’ve ever laid eyes on.

Renault Avantime

Ah, the Avantime. Did you know its name comes from the French word ‘avant’, meaning ahead, and the English word ‘time’, meaning, erm, time. In other words, Renault was calling it ahead of its time.

A bit too ahead, frankly, because the Avantime, introduced in 2001, was a total flop. And yet its combination of weird coupe/MPV proportions, huge and airy cabin and optional V6 engine gets more appealing by the day. We particularly like this one, because it has a rare Zender bodykit and a Devil aftermarket exhaust.

Renault RS10

Onto some racing stuff, and a significant car in F1 history. Renault introduced the first turbocharged F1 car ever with the RS01 in 1977, and two years later, its successor, the RS10, became the first forced-induction car to win a race.

This came, appropriately enough, at the 1979 French Grand Prix, in the hands of French driver Jean-Pierre Jabouille. That was the race where fellow Renault pilot René Arnoux and Ferrari’s Gilles Villeneuve had a truly epic scrap over second place, one of the best bits of motorsport footage you’ll ever see.

Renault Laguna BTCC

Nowhere was the win on Sunday, sell on Monday era of racing summed up better than in the British Touring Car Championship during its 1990s Super Touring heyday. Lowered, tuned-up and garishly-liveried versions of middle managers’ saloon cars captivated the nation with their door-banging racing and two-wheeling antics, all soundtracked by the typically high-revving tones of F1 commentary legend Murray Walker.

The Laguna is one of the most recognisable cars of this era. With a big-budget factory team run by the Williams F1 squad, the Laguna swept the manufacturers’, drivers’ and teams’ championships in 1997. We imagine it made an entire generation crave a Laguna of their own in a way we imagine simply couldn’t be repeated today (not least because the Laguna is no more).

Renault R26

This is a car that needs absolutely no introduction to those of us whose childhood Sunday afternoons were spent entranced by the haunting wail of 2000s F1 cars. The 2006 R26 was Renault’s first F1 car of the 2000s V8 era, and the one that took a soul-patched, curved-sunglasses-wearing Fernando Alonso to his second world championship.

Much of its success came from its cleverly tuned mass damper, a system that counteracted the chassis’ motion to keep everything a bit more stable. This may have been banned halfway through the season, but with Alonso finishing no lower than second for the first nine rounds, the car had already made its mark.

Renault 40 CV des Records

Back in the 1920s, when lots of the companies making these fancy new things called ‘cars’ were looking to prove their worth, going for land speed records was all the rage. The massive 40 CV des Records, from 1926, was Renault’s first attempt.

With a gigantic 9.0-litre straight-six engine, this single-seater was, as its name suggests, built purely to break records. And break records it did: it covered 50 miles at an average speed of 118mph and maintained an average of 108mph over 24 hours. In 1926!

Renault Twingo Mk1

It’s a Mk1 Renault Twingo. We literally don’t need to say any more than that.