Petrolicious, the creator of high quality, unique movies and articles for traditional automotive fanatics, has launched its newest video, that includes automotive devotee Juan Carlos Fernandez who labored exhausting to revive the Group B rally legend of his goals.
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 excellent 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.
Right this moment, Petrolicious takes up Juan’s story…
It’s akin to touchdown a dream job you lied via your enamel 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 enhance 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, forsaking their residence, their belongings, every thing they’d 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 sort of work ethic that doesn’t ask for shortcuts.
By the point he was a youngster, automobiles had his full consideration. His cousins have been within the auto enterprise, and he scraped collectively no matter he may to purchase his first automotive, a $200 venture. One automotive changed into two. Two changed into three. The hustle by no means stopped. If he wanted more cash, he labored more durable. A long time later, that drive changed into Ferco Motors, the dealership he owns at this time.
A good friend as soon as informed him the R5 was “so ugly it’s stunning,” however to Juan, it was simply stunning. It had character, presence, and the sort of uncooked, unfiltered driving expertise that trendy 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 economic 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 facility was turned up. The outcome 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 rather more developed machines, confirmed its potential. The true breakthrough got here the next yr 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 have 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 dust and within the highlight pale.
Juan’s R5 wasn’t good when he purchased it. It had been sitting, uncared for, and the primary drive was a disappointment. No enhance, 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 quite a lot 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 thing, and by no means requested for a shortcut. The R5 doesn’t give one both. It simply needs you to indicate up for work.
