It’s akin to landing a dream job you lied through your teeth to get. You walk in on day one, staring down a pile of responsibilities you aren’t remotely qualified for. The job? Managing a car with a 1.5-liter turbo engine running around 2 bar of boost mounted where the groceries used to go. No airbag, no abs, no training wheels. Just figure it out before you get fired or, in this case, sent backward through a guardrail. Your new boss, (who ignores OSHA and HR) the Renault R5 Maxi Turbo, expects results.
Juan Carlos Fernandez knows what it’s like to start from nothing. In 1963, his family fled Cuba with an infant Juan in tow, leaving behind their home, their belongings, everything they had ever known. They landed in Puerto Rico with no roadmap, just the need to survive. His parents worked tirelessly to rebuild, instilling in him the kind of work ethic that doesn’t ask for shortcuts.
By the time he was a teenager, cars had his full attention. His cousins were in the auto business, and he scraped together whatever he could to buy his first car, a $200 project. One car turned into two. Two turned into three. The hustle never stopped. If he needed more money, he worked harder. Decades later, that drive turned into Ferco Motors, the dealership he owns today.
A friend once told him the R5 was “so ugly it’s beautiful,” but to Juan, it was just beautiful. It had character, presence, and the kind of raw, unfiltered driving experience that modern cars have lost. It wasn’t built for straight-line speed or effortless performance, it was built to be driven hard, to demand something from the driver. And that’s exactly what drew him to it.
The R5 is a product of Renault’s obsession with Group B, the golden era of rally racing where manufacturers built the most extreme machines they could get away with. The FIA required manufacturers to build a limited number of road-going versions to compete, and Renault’s answer was to take their humble economy hatch and reimagine it into something wild. At risk of boiling things down, and for the sake of brevity we’ll just say the engine was moved to the back, the body was widened, and the power was turned up The result was the R5 Turbo. That car made its competition debut in 1980 at the Tour de Corse, a rally known for its tight, twisting tarmac stages. French driver Jean Ragnotti piloted the car and, despite being up against much more developed machines, showed its potential. The real breakthrough came the following year when Ragnotti drove the R5 Turbo to an outright victory at the 1981 Monte Carlo Rally. It was undoubtedly good, but… was more possible?
Enter the R5 Maxi Turbo, the ultimate version, the final boss. It was built to compete with the Audi Quattro and the Peugeot 205 T16. Definitely a tough crowd. Renault brought in Bozian Racing, a French motorsport engineering firm known for squeezing every last drop of performance out of small-displacement engines. In this case they pulled 350 horsepower out of Renaults 1.5L engine. They made the car stiffer, and increased the work aerodynamics were doing. It had some success in competition, and proved its mettle on tarmac, but as all-wheel-drive rivals took over, its time on the dirt and in the spotlight, faded.
Juan’s R5 wasn’t perfect when he bought it. It had been sitting, neglected, and the first drive was a disappointment. No boost, a failing clutch, just a reminder that even the greats need work, and time spares no one, and no thing. But with the right expertise, the right people, and a lot of effort, it came back to life, a worthy tribute to the Group B legend.
Juan Carlos Fernandez didn’t get here by taking the easy way. He came from nothing, worked for everything, and never asked for a shortcut. The R5 doesn’t give one either. It just wants you to show up for work.
