What if I told you that there was a supercar from the 1980s that cost less than the Lamborghini Countach and the Ferrari Testarossa and could outrun them both on a race track? And what if I told you that this car could also yield 30 miles per gallon? You would probably think I was crazy.
Well, such a car does exist and in theory, it sounds fantastic. However, there is just one drawback to the Mosler Consulier GTP…the way it looks.
In an earlier post about the Lotus Cortina I explained the idea of homologation – whereby manufacturers must build and sell a minimum number of cars to the public in order to qualify as a “production car.” Here we have another example of a factory-built race car that was sold to the public, and this one is even more extreme.
It’s called the Renault 5 Turbo II and like many of the cars I have covered recently, this is another rare specimen from Cars and Coffee. So what’s the deal with this car, and how did it come to be?
One might assume that since the Ford Ranger came from the factory with the 2.3 “Pinto” engine, and the turbocharged SVO Mustang also used a 2.3, that it ought to be a simple matter to just scrape all the turbo stuff off of a Mustang or Thunderbird Turbo Coupe (or Cougar XR7 or Merkur XR4Ti), slap it onto a Ranger and be done with it.
