The Renault Sport Spider - A French Oddity

Ever wanted a Lotus Elise, but didn’t want to be mainstream? Ever wanted to stand out from the crowd of common track toys? Well, here’s something that might fit that category!

After the success of Renault making the ‘5’ into its wide-bodied counterpart, they wanted to try it again. The Sport Spider was the first car to be developed under the then newly emerged ‘Renault Sport’ brand as a way to bring more track focused cars into commonplace. 

The car itself featured radical shapes from its concept, the Renault Laguna, designed by the genius ‘Patrick Le Quement’, who also designed the Ford Sierra, Renault Twingo I, Avantime, Megane I & II, just to name a few. His motto was ‘Design = Quality’, and you can truly see that in the Sport Spider!

The car was truly unique, and followed its track-focused approach quite closely. With smooth lines of plastic composite embracing the exterior and no door handles, the car was as aerodynamic as a teardrop. And when it came to detailing the interior, there was no added luxury. With lightweight bucket seats, to the aluminium chassis integrated into the design of the interior, the weight of the vehicle was at a mere 930kg! (That’s lighter than an Alfa Romeo 4C Spider, Ultima Evolution Coupe 1020, and even a Radical RXC Turbo!)

The powerhouse of this lightweight track car is a 2.0 litre, 16-valve, F7R in-line 4, which was also present in the Megane I Coupe and the Clio Williams. It produced 148 hp @ 6,100 rpm and 175 Nm of torque @ 4,500 rpm which isn’t a whole lot, but compared to its weight, it handles it quite well without the loss of handling due to too much power. 

The Renault Sport Spider’s main competitor is the Lotus Elise, in which 90% of everyone will go for it, as it triumphs in specs over the Renault. This is probably due to the Lotus coming out after the Frenchie and had a benchmark to pass. The Spider is 1 second slower to 100 km/h (@ 6.7 seconds), more fuel consumption, more emissions, less engine power (2 hp less), lower top speed (12 km/h lower), higher displacement engine (meaning more weight at 0.2 liters more). However, those who buy the Sport Spider, probably aren’t interested in all those ‘normie’ specs, as they’re more into the rarity, uniqueness and its overall ‘cool factor’!

What makes the Renault ‘cooler’ than the Elise is that it has scissor doors, no exterior door handles, no windows, removable windshield, an option of either a weirdly-shaped hardtop or a weirdly-shaped soft top, its unique design, and in this case a GT-style wing! 

Fun fact: to go into reverse gear, the driver must first shift into neutral, then twist the gear knob anti-clockwise to ‘unlock’ the reverse gear. And to go back into first, the driver must turn it clockwise to ‘unlock’ the option to go back into first.

The Spider was in production for 3 years, from 1996-1999, and 1,800 were produced. Of those, only 100 were RHD, meaning this one shown here is 1 of 1,700. In New Zealand, there are at least 4 of these: 2 for 1997 and 2 for 1998, this winged-one being the only one of its kind in the country. 

As it was produced to be a race car for the road, the car was present in Renault’s one-car racing series, just as the Renault 5 Turbo, 21 Turbo and Clio was. Performance was upgraded to 210 hp @ 6,000 rpm, torque was 184.4 Nm @ 4,500 rpm. The weight was also reduced by 76 kg to a mere 854 kg. Acceleration was shortened at 5.8 seconds to 100 km/h and top speed was increased from 202 km/h to 251 km/h. 

However, even as rare as this oddity was, it still had cars that were based on it. Such was the RJ Racing Helem, which first featured the Spider’s 2.0 litre I4 from the one-car racing series. This soon proved to be quite a bit slower than its competitors, which were the likes of 911 GT2’s, Vipers and Corvettes, and so the Helem was then equipped with a turbocharged 3.0 V6 (same one featured in the Alpine A610, Citroen XM and the Venturi 300/400 cars). The power was then bumped up to 510 hp for the GT2 class, and 550 hp in the GT1 class. 

Colour Time: The Renault Sport Spider came in 9 colours:

Reds: Red (Rouge), Fair Red Pearl (Rouge Feria Pearl), Mars Red Metallic (Rouge Da Mars Met)

Yellow: Iris Yellow Pearl (Jaune Irise Nacre)

Blue: Methyl Blue Metallic (Blu Methyl Met), Slide Sport Blue Pearl (Blu Sport Syrtaki Nacre), Nautical White (Blanc Nautic)

Silver: Titanium Metallic (Titane Met)

Grey: Xerus Grey Metallic (Gris Xerus Met)

For those that have seen this oddity in person, you’re very lucky, and of those that haven’t, dare I say ‘J'espère que vous en trouverez un!’

Until next time!