The car served me well, above all by being preternaturally reliable... didn't have any experience with French cars before, I thought they spent most of their time broken. But this... apart from minor things (like clogging carb, loosing parts of body trim and wipers while on the move... whoops) and wear it was rock solid. I raced it until the november of 2006 when the inevitable happened. A warrior's death.

Due to lack of concentration on that day (OK, brain dead was more like it, kamikaze mode on) I positioned the car wrong on corner entry, clipped the inside (fairly normal in rallying, not necessary a terminal error), bounced up on truck tires that were dug in at that spot (hidden in high grass), made 3/4ths of roll onto the roof but got thrown onto other truck tires and ended up on the wheels. I quickly checked if the basic stuff works and wanted to go on, asked my co-driver about it (he's the brains in a rally car) but he said no. A week earlier he was in a more serious accident with another driver and still didn't feel well, so we retired from the event. The car was mechanically fine, but repairs to the body would be expensive enough to buy another Super 5... this time a 1400cc. But this is another story.

I will never forget this jalopy. My first car. My first experience with motorsport as a competitior. Stuff like that sticks with you forever. Good bye, Renault.

A couple of memorable moments...