Post by PatrickPiers on Sept 7, 2005 11:11:38 GMT 1
Cet article m'a semblé assez intéressant :
When fly first announced that they planned to release a Renault 5 Turbo I cannot have been the only person who was pleased upon hearing the news, and I immediately placed an order for one at my shop. Fly seem to have been specializing recently upon early 1980s rally cars, the forerunners to the wild Group B super cars of the mid 80s. Before this Renault they released the Lancia 037 and have also produced, as a spin off from their other 911 releases, a Porsche 911 SC in full Rothmans rally livery. As both of these cars are the only type of vehicles I have in my collection that are of the same general period and class as the Renault, they are the cars I will compare the Renault against later in this review.
Renault had already tried to rally the 5 before they devised this monster. In the late 1970s they had developed a 5 with the engine in the normal place, but extensively tuned, they called this the Renault 5 Alpine. It didn’t however meet with the type of success Renault was expecting. So they decided to take advantage of the new group 4 regulations, and they developed the Turbo. They shifted the engine to the back, slung out over the rear axles of the car, and managed to convince the 1400 cc engine to produce 250BHP.
Jean Ragnotti gave the Turbo 5 its debut on the Tour Of Corsica in 1980, where he retired due to a broken alternator, but the seeds had been sown, and the Renault 5 turbo was set for a good, if overshadowed career. It arrived at the same time as the Audi Quattro and Lancia 037 and as such the small Renault outfit often had to work very hard to get their cars up the order. The small cars engines were also often a weak point. But success did come on both the 1981 Monte Carlo rally (the car here being reviewed is a model of this car) and also on the 1982 Tour De Corse. Both times the car being piloted by Ragnotti and co-driven by Jean Marc Andrie.
As I have already mentioned the Renault that fly have decided to produce first is a replica of the 1981 Monte Carlo winner piloted by Jean Ragnotti.
From the outset the thing that struck me about this car is the outstanding detail. Recently with slot cars we have been spoilt for detail, and this 5 is no exception. The interior appears to be correct in every detail, right down to the colour of it, the co driver has his pace notes at the ready and they are themselves marked with writing and a circle has been put around one particular pace note.
They have even included some kind of wire or lever hanging from the roll cage on the co-drivers side, any suggestions as to what this is would be well received please as I have no idea! It is however good that fly has decided to include it. It can be seen in some of the photos, just in front of the co-drivers face.
Apologies for the lack of interior photos, but my photography skills do not extend to being able to capture well enough the interior to do it justice. Overall for the interior I would give it 8 out of 10.
The detail on the outside is however more of a mixed bag. In some places the fine detailing is very impressive. All the little lights and vents are present and correct and the wheels are a spot on match for the ones on the 1:1 car.
However, some of the finer tampo printing lets the car down. I do understand that having three colours that mix as badly as white, yellow and black on one car must have made the job of making the scheme look acceptable a hard one. Some of the smaller sponsorship logos are also slightly smudged and discolored. However I would like to point out that I am nit picking here, on the whole the car is very good, and I must say that I definitely would recommend it to the collector on just its looks alone.
They have captured the shape and stance of the little car perfectly. Only the real perfectionist would have much of a problem with the look of the car. And so I shall award the exterior 8 out of 10 as well.
One other point regards the outside detail is that any buyer should be wary of the small radio aerial atop the roof. I found that after only 10-12 laps of hard racing it became loose, and I had to glue it back on. Others may not find this happens with there example, but it worth a look, because if it becomes detached, I doubt it would be easy to find.
Under the skin the car follows Fly's tradition of putting the motor in pretty much the same place as it is on the real car. With the Renault it is placed just in front of the rear axle, behind the drivers compartment. The motor is set up in a standard sidewinder fashion and the motor is a standard fly 18,000-rpm unit.
The picture shows this, and also shows the frontal light bits that do not stay with the body when it is lifted from the chassis but instead stay attached to the base. Looking at them I doubt whether wiring them to a light unit would be much trouble, and would also certainly look good when going round the track.
On my 7.2-meter track at home I tested the Renault with 40 test laps and then 10 flying laps. It immediately performed quite well, its performance down the longish straights was at first quite sluggish, but after a bit of a run in its performance picked up somewhat and it proved itself to be a capable little runner, taking the slower speed corners well, and only having a slight problem with some of the faster more sweeping curves, where I think its boxier shape hindered it somewhat. Overall, as a runner for at home I would give it good marks, again around 8 out of 10. However for the serious racers among you I would advise some work, perhaps weighting of the front end, and also upgrading tyres. My example was perhaps not the best to judge the try quality on, as at the factory it had been over lubricated at the back, and when I got my car a reasonable amount of grease had slipped onto the rear tyres, something that made the car quite ‘lively’ at first, although it soon calmed down.
After the 10 laps I set about recording the cars best lap time. Around my circuit it set a respectable 2.8 seconds as its best time, comparing reasonably well with the 2.7 set by my Totip Lancia 037 (Fly A992) and smashing the 3.2-second time set by my Rothmans Porsche (Fly A962). Overall the car did run well, how well in a club environment is another matter, and I doubt the car would perform as well de-magnetized. But I was still pleased with my results.
Overall I have been very pleased with my car, it handles well, looks the part and certainly sits well when placed next to cars of a similar vintage. The only things that did let the car down where some minor printing issues, and perhaps a lack of real pure speed, but to me personally these are really minor issues, and I would not hesitate to recommend this car to either a fan of the era, genre of racing, or just a general slot car person such as myself.
Elles sont tellement jolies
Après l'avoir testé sur la piste de La Louvière, il est ressorti qu'elle avait un comportement plus que correct mais l'élargissement de l'empatement avant est nécessaire afin d'éviter les sorties de route.
Peut être aussi qu'un moteur plus puissant ( ex: Torro Rosso) aurait été justifié dans ce superbe modèle des années 80
When fly first announced that they planned to release a Renault 5 Turbo I cannot have been the only person who was pleased upon hearing the news, and I immediately placed an order for one at my shop. Fly seem to have been specializing recently upon early 1980s rally cars, the forerunners to the wild Group B super cars of the mid 80s. Before this Renault they released the Lancia 037 and have also produced, as a spin off from their other 911 releases, a Porsche 911 SC in full Rothmans rally livery. As both of these cars are the only type of vehicles I have in my collection that are of the same general period and class as the Renault, they are the cars I will compare the Renault against later in this review.
Renault had already tried to rally the 5 before they devised this monster. In the late 1970s they had developed a 5 with the engine in the normal place, but extensively tuned, they called this the Renault 5 Alpine. It didn’t however meet with the type of success Renault was expecting. So they decided to take advantage of the new group 4 regulations, and they developed the Turbo. They shifted the engine to the back, slung out over the rear axles of the car, and managed to convince the 1400 cc engine to produce 250BHP.
Jean Ragnotti gave the Turbo 5 its debut on the Tour Of Corsica in 1980, where he retired due to a broken alternator, but the seeds had been sown, and the Renault 5 turbo was set for a good, if overshadowed career. It arrived at the same time as the Audi Quattro and Lancia 037 and as such the small Renault outfit often had to work very hard to get their cars up the order. The small cars engines were also often a weak point. But success did come on both the 1981 Monte Carlo rally (the car here being reviewed is a model of this car) and also on the 1982 Tour De Corse. Both times the car being piloted by Ragnotti and co-driven by Jean Marc Andrie.
As I have already mentioned the Renault that fly have decided to produce first is a replica of the 1981 Monte Carlo winner piloted by Jean Ragnotti.
From the outset the thing that struck me about this car is the outstanding detail. Recently with slot cars we have been spoilt for detail, and this 5 is no exception. The interior appears to be correct in every detail, right down to the colour of it, the co driver has his pace notes at the ready and they are themselves marked with writing and a circle has been put around one particular pace note.
They have even included some kind of wire or lever hanging from the roll cage on the co-drivers side, any suggestions as to what this is would be well received please as I have no idea! It is however good that fly has decided to include it. It can be seen in some of the photos, just in front of the co-drivers face.
Apologies for the lack of interior photos, but my photography skills do not extend to being able to capture well enough the interior to do it justice. Overall for the interior I would give it 8 out of 10.
The detail on the outside is however more of a mixed bag. In some places the fine detailing is very impressive. All the little lights and vents are present and correct and the wheels are a spot on match for the ones on the 1:1 car.
However, some of the finer tampo printing lets the car down. I do understand that having three colours that mix as badly as white, yellow and black on one car must have made the job of making the scheme look acceptable a hard one. Some of the smaller sponsorship logos are also slightly smudged and discolored. However I would like to point out that I am nit picking here, on the whole the car is very good, and I must say that I definitely would recommend it to the collector on just its looks alone.
They have captured the shape and stance of the little car perfectly. Only the real perfectionist would have much of a problem with the look of the car. And so I shall award the exterior 8 out of 10 as well.
One other point regards the outside detail is that any buyer should be wary of the small radio aerial atop the roof. I found that after only 10-12 laps of hard racing it became loose, and I had to glue it back on. Others may not find this happens with there example, but it worth a look, because if it becomes detached, I doubt it would be easy to find.
Under the skin the car follows Fly's tradition of putting the motor in pretty much the same place as it is on the real car. With the Renault it is placed just in front of the rear axle, behind the drivers compartment. The motor is set up in a standard sidewinder fashion and the motor is a standard fly 18,000-rpm unit.
The picture shows this, and also shows the frontal light bits that do not stay with the body when it is lifted from the chassis but instead stay attached to the base. Looking at them I doubt whether wiring them to a light unit would be much trouble, and would also certainly look good when going round the track.
On my 7.2-meter track at home I tested the Renault with 40 test laps and then 10 flying laps. It immediately performed quite well, its performance down the longish straights was at first quite sluggish, but after a bit of a run in its performance picked up somewhat and it proved itself to be a capable little runner, taking the slower speed corners well, and only having a slight problem with some of the faster more sweeping curves, where I think its boxier shape hindered it somewhat. Overall, as a runner for at home I would give it good marks, again around 8 out of 10. However for the serious racers among you I would advise some work, perhaps weighting of the front end, and also upgrading tyres. My example was perhaps not the best to judge the try quality on, as at the factory it had been over lubricated at the back, and when I got my car a reasonable amount of grease had slipped onto the rear tyres, something that made the car quite ‘lively’ at first, although it soon calmed down.
After the 10 laps I set about recording the cars best lap time. Around my circuit it set a respectable 2.8 seconds as its best time, comparing reasonably well with the 2.7 set by my Totip Lancia 037 (Fly A992) and smashing the 3.2-second time set by my Rothmans Porsche (Fly A962). Overall the car did run well, how well in a club environment is another matter, and I doubt the car would perform as well de-magnetized. But I was still pleased with my results.
Overall I have been very pleased with my car, it handles well, looks the part and certainly sits well when placed next to cars of a similar vintage. The only things that did let the car down where some minor printing issues, and perhaps a lack of real pure speed, but to me personally these are really minor issues, and I would not hesitate to recommend this car to either a fan of the era, genre of racing, or just a general slot car person such as myself.
Elles sont tellement jolies
Après l'avoir testé sur la piste de La Louvière, il est ressorti qu'elle avait un comportement plus que correct mais l'élargissement de l'empatement avant est nécessaire afin d'éviter les sorties de route.
Peut être aussi qu'un moteur plus puissant ( ex: Torro Rosso) aurait été justifié dans ce superbe modèle des années 80