logo
Like this adorable off-road Renault 5? If you do, a German tuner will build it

Like this adorable off-road Renault 5? If you do, a German tuner will build it

Top Gear2 days ago
Electric
Delta Geländesport reworks the R5 as a diddy explorer. Make it immediately pls Skip 5 photos in the image carousel and continue reading
Jacked-up suspension on small cars just works. Today's exhibit: German tuner delta Geländesport's adventurous take on the award-winning Renault 5 electric car. Behold: a jacked-up Renault 5 electric car!
Quietly glorious, you'll agree. 'We wanted to show what's possible on a small scale,' said Geländesport. 'Our goal was to combine the charm of the new R5 with a healthy dose of adventure.'
Advertisement - Page continues below
To achieve that literally lofty ambition, DG slotted in new suspension raising the entire R5 by 100mm, fitted 'massive' widened wheelarches, and bolted on 'chunky' Loder AT#1 off-road tyres. Massive 18in off-road tyres, 'a rare choice in this vehicle class', it said.
Elsewhere, thine eyes will already have been diverted to that roof rack and funky paintjob. But also mostly to the set of PIAA high-performance spotlights adorning the R5's adorable little face, 'true to the spirit of the wild rally cars of the 1980s', it said. You might like
There's no word on any powertrain uplift, so the R5's internals remains as per the factory: your choice of either a 40kWh battery and 118bhp, or a 52kWh unit and 148bhp. If you sling DG a few euros, who's to say it can't jack up the power a bit, too…
Now comes the kicker. 'Currently the vehicle exists only as a series of renderings, which are already generating significant buzz,' it said, 'but as is often the case with delta Geländesport, if there's enough demand, this dream could become a reality.'
Advertisement - Page continues below
So 'now it's up to the community'. If you like it, let DG know directly and factor in the cost: it reckons on somewhere between €15k-€20k. Plus an actual R5, of course.
Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Look out for your regular round-up of news, reviews and offers in your inbox.
Get all the latest news, reviews and exclusives, direct to your inbox.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

F1 British GP live: FP3 updates and qualifying start time with Lando Norris fastest at Silverstone
F1 British GP live: FP3 updates and qualifying start time with Lando Norris fastest at Silverstone

The Independent

timean hour ago

  • The Independent

F1 British GP live: FP3 updates and qualifying start time with Lando Norris fastest at Silverstone

F1 is back at Silverstone with the exciting British Grand Prix for round 12 of the 2025 season. Lewis Hamilton's heroics last year still live vividly in most fans' memories, and he's back in the Ferrari ready to salvage an otherwise disappointing season, with Lando Norris grabbing that crucial win last time out in Austria. Norris will be eager to pip McLaren teammate and championship rival Oscar Piastri and his speed in practice makes him the man to beat around this Silverstone track, with the Australian driver's lead now just 15 points after the first 11 races. Charles Leclerc picked up the final podium place for Ferrari last time out, while the weekend will focus closely on both Red Bull's Max Verstappen, who has been linked with a move to Mercedes, and arch rival George Russell, who remains calm heading into 2026 without his seat secure. Christian Horner concedes defeat in Max Verstappen F1 title bid 'The buffer McLaren has is significant. It looks very much like a two-horse race,' said Horner. 'You could see how McLaren are racing each other. They've got a cushion to the rest. For us we just focus on one race at a time. We don't even think about championships. 'What's truly impressive is when you look at how close Oscar is able to run behind Lando with a car fat on fuel, at the beginning of the race, and he's basically making love to his f****** exhaust pipe lap after lap after lap and the tyres are not dying. 'That is their advantage. I can't see any other car that would be able to follow that closely and not grain the front tyres or the rear tyres.' Jack Rathborn5 July 2025 08:00 George Russell adamant he will not be leaving Mercedes: 'Toto has never let me down' George Russell believes he won't be leaving Mercedes at the end of the season despite speculation linking Red Bull's Max Verstappen with the team. Russell, who is in the middle of his fourth season with Mercedes, does not currently have a contract beyond 2025 despite a strong first half of the season. Four-time F1 world champion Verstappen has long been courted by Mercedes boss Toto Wolff and reports in Italian media this week state that the Dutchman is open to the prospect of joining the Silver Arrows next year. Russell revealed last week that Mercedes are in discussions with Verstappen. But Russell, who is in the midst of his first campaign without Lewis Hamilton as his teammate, insists he is unconcerned. 'There's a lot of conversations behind the scenes that are not public and I know where their loyalty lies,' Russell said, ahead of this weekend's British Grand Prix. George Russell adamant he will not be leaving Mercedes: 'Toto has never let me down' Russell has not signed a contract beyond this season, while Mercedes are in discussions with Max Verstappen Jack Rathborn4 July 2025 20:09 F1 standings ahead of British Grand Prix 1. Oscar Piastri (McLaren) – 216 points 2. Lando Norris (McLaren) – 201 points 3. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) – 155 points 4. George Russell (Mercedes) – 146 points 5. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) – 119 points 6. Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) – 91 points 7. Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) – 63 points 8. Alex Albon (Williams) – 42 points 9. Esteban Ocon (Haas) – 23 points 10. Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber) - 22 points 11. Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls) – 21 points 12. Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) – 14 points 13. Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) – 14 points 14. Carlos Sainz (Williams) – 13 points 15. Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) – 12 points 16. Pierre Gasly (Alpine) – 11 points 17. Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull) – 10 points 18. Ollie Bearman (Haas) – 6 points 19. Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber) – 4 points 20. Franco Colapinto (Alpine) – 0 points 21. Jack Doohan (Alpine) – 0 points Jack Rathborn4 July 2025 20:09 Lando Norris sets the pace in FP2 It's a promising weekend for Lando Norris, who aims to build on his big win in Austria and win his home grand prix for the first time. And the McLaren driver follows in his countryman Lewis Hamilton's suit to top the timesheet after FP2 - making it an all-English affair so far at Silverstone! The Ferraris are on his tail and have made a statement after an underwhelming season so far, with both Hamilton and Charles Leclerc finishing in the top three. Jack Rathborn4 July 2025 20:08 Lewis Hamilton returns to Silverstone in last chance saloon for first Ferrari year If you'd told Lewis Hamilton four months ago, amid the hoopla of Formula One's biggest-ever driver move, that he would be 'hoping and praying' for a strong result at his beloved Silverstone, he'd likely have laughed you out of the room. Either that or he'd have rolled his eyes. Take your pick. After all, this was the seven-time F1 world champion moving to the fabled Ferrari. A driver in need of rejuvenation after three years of frustration at Mercedes was joining a team seemingly on the up, having come within a whisker of last year's constructors' title. Everything seemed perfectly aligned. With the whole world watching, what could possibly go wrong? Well, come race 12 and the halfway stage of the 2025 season, the answer is unavoidable: pretty much everything. Lewis Hamilton returns to Silverstone in last chance saloon for first Ferrari year Hamilton has been on the podium 11 times in a row at Silverstone, but is yet to secure a top-3 finish this year Jack Rathborn4 July 2025 20:07 British Grand Prix 2025 schedule all times BST 5 July FP3 - 11:30am Qualifying - 3pm 6 July Grand Prix - 3pm Jack Rathborn4 July 2025 19:00

Toasting 50 years of the Lotus Esprit with... a garden party?
Toasting 50 years of the Lotus Esprit with... a garden party?

Auto Car

time2 hours ago

  • Auto Car

Toasting 50 years of the Lotus Esprit with... a garden party?

'Dad was always looking forward. He saw what other companies were doing and wanted to raise Lotus's game,' he replies. 'We had gone from the Elan to the Esprit, but this extraordinary car still had (the Elan's) handling characteristics… so you had your foot in both camps.' Wandering around the gathered Esprits gives you a measure of how Lotus sweated the model for all it was worth with, by my reckoning, 22 derivatives produced during its life – possibly even more. As well as the S1s, all the models from different designers are represented – X180 (Peter Stevens), S4 (Julian Thomson) and last-of-line V8 (Russell Carr) – plus special editions like the black and gold Esprit JPS and blue, red and silver Esprit Essex, both referencing Lotus's F1 ties. And what do we find in the manor's swimming pool? Naturally, James Bond's Esprit sub – aka 'Wet Nellie' – from the 1977 film The Spy Who Loved Me. In fact, it's what looks to be a half-scale model, with the actual full-sized prop at the poolside, in front of the Turbo Esprit from the 1981 Bond film For Your Eyes Only. As I leave the event, heads are turned towards Giugiaro, who is now sitting in an S1 parked next to Lotus's 2024 Theory 1 concept car. In 50 years' time, I only hope that car will prove as influential to Lotus's future as the Esprit was in 1975.

David Coulthard on F1 in the 1990s
David Coulthard on F1 in the 1990s

Auto Car

time2 hours ago

  • Auto Car

David Coulthard on F1 in the 1990s

Open gallery Coulthard made his F1 debut at the age of 23 The Scotsman's best years were at McLaren in the late 1990s and early 2000s Coulthard has remained a Red Bull ambassador since retiring in 2008 Close Understudy to Alain Prost. Subbed in after the death of Ayrton Senna. Undermined by a returning Nigel Mansell. Teamed with and against Damon Hill in a Williams blessed by the Midas touch of Adrian Newey. And that was just the first three years. At the time, it was all just life for young and promising David Coulthard. Now long retired at 53, established as an eloquent TV pundit and about to do it all again as a racing dad, the man universally known as DC has to admit: his 1990s kinda rocked. 'I recall testing with Prost [in 1993], looking over to his side of the garage and just thinking: how can my life be any better than this?' Coulthard tells me. 'I'm test driving for the guy who was my hero watching BBC Two half-hour highlights with Murray Walker and James Hunt. "An amazing period. Of course it was shit what happened at Imola 1994 [when Senna was killed in a crash], but that's life. No one gets through it without tragedy. That was how my opportunity came about.' Coulthard was a bright, rising star at the dawn of the 1990s. Promoted unexpectedly in those terrible circumstances, he had to accept sharing the #2 Williams car for the rest of 1994 with Mansell, who returned from Indycar for guest appearances. Coulthard took the drive full-time the following year, claimed his first grand prix win in Portugal, but left at season's end for McLaren, following sticky contractual negotiations. Shaded by double world champion team-mate Mika Häkkinen, Coulthard nevertheless remained at McLaren for nine seasons before seeing out his career at Red Bull. Instinctively he's self-deprecating about his abilities, but the truth is that he was a very good grand prix driver. The timing of his Formula 1 emergence spanned the last manual-gearbox F1 cars, in tests for Benetton and McLaren, before he found himself as an unpaid tester for Williams at the height of the so-called 'gizmo era' in 1993. 'The 'active' Williams had power steering, ABS [anti-lock braking], traction control, fully automatic up-changes, full launch control – then that was all banned for 1994,' he says. 'So I got to experience the 'magic carpet' cars, the more raw F1 of 1994-1995, then went to McLaren.' More regulation changes designed to curb performance followed in 1998, via new narrow-track car dimensions and 'shite' grooved tyres. Coulthard had to live with the compromised rubber all the way to the end of his F1 career. 'The sport very rarely listens to the drivers,' he says. 'Of course they did what they were supposed to do, which was reduce the contact patch, but getting the graining under control and leaving enough groove depth at the end of a race to keep them legal… what a load of faff to slow the cars down. It could have been done in another way.' The slick modern world of F1 exists in a different dimension to the raw, unvarnished sport that Coulthard grew up in, I suggest. 'Yes and no,' replies Coulthard. 'I've been going to race tracks since I was a kid, and there's a familiarity whenever I go back to one.' Recently he returned to humble Pembrey in Wales for the first time since his days testing for Williams, to watch his 16-year-old son Dayton prepare for his first season in the British GB4 Championship. The essence of racing life doesn't change. 'F1 has always been about technology and the fastest thing available at that time,' he says. 'Where we are now is a reflection of modern governmental influence [in terms of emissions legislation], whereas in the 1980s and 1990s, F1 did its thing, the automotive business did its thing, there would be crossover, such as carbonfibre, traction control and fuel efficiencies, but largely F1 was more of a marketing association than the technical collaboration it is today. That's the big change.' The physicality of driving F1 cars is different, too. Just watch old on-board footage from the 1990s compared with clips on today's ultra-smooth race tracks. 'It's quite difficult to explain to today's generation,' says Coulthard. 'Ollie Bearman [the 19-year-old rookie driving for Haas] is probably looking at F1 as somewhat easier than Formula 2, because grand prix cars have power steering and F2 doesn't. Power steering is like a light going on for racing drivers. 'I asked him about Saudi Arabia last year when he stepped into the Ferrari for his F1 debut and the biggest thing was his neck, because he wasn't used to that level of g-force over a long period of time. But if you go back to the 1990s, when we had in-race refuelling, our relative race pace was closer to a qualifying time, so the physicality in the races was higher than in modern F1. 'In reaction to the 2023 Qatar GP, when a few drivers were overheating, we now have all these nice [cooling] bodysuits to make sure our highly paid racing drivers aren't working too hard… It's just a reflection of modern society, isn't it? 'I loved the grands prix when I was physically and mentally spent at the end of them, because it made me feel like a GP driver. When I watch those videos of Senna at Suzuka or Monaco, that is an amazing feat of driving skill and physical prowess. "Today they are amazing drivers, and every generation should be better. Arguably Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton are the best there has ever been. But physically they're in a comfort zone that wasn't there in the 1980s and 1990s.' F1 seems less intimidating for new drivers today than it was for Coulthard's generation. 'Just getting out of the garage without stalling used to be a badge of honour because the foot clutches were pretty raw,' he says. 'I don't want to be the guy who says it was more difficult then, but speak to Fernando [Alonso] and Lewis, who have tried those older cars. Don't take my word for it; take it from them.' There's a general perception that the 'gizmo cars', with all their driver aids, were easy. Allan McNish, who tested for Benetton at the height of that era, refutes the charge: the aids raised the performance level, he says, but living on the limit still separated the great from the good. 'I remember testing at Imola with full active suspension and ABS, and that night my head was in my soup,' recalls Coulthard. 'My neck was f***ed. Every time you braked it was a sledgehammer in the back of the head. "I had servo on the brakes as well, so you didn't even have to push the pedal that hard to get 100% of its potential, and I had ABS, which doesn't mean shorter braking; you're just not flat-spotting tyres where the limit is.' He comes back to power steering: 'The most difficult cars were those without it. I remember testing [famously arm-strong] Mansell's Williams at Estoril: at the fast turn two, you had one attempt at putting on steering lock, and whatever you got, that was your profile for the corner. "Nigel liked a very small steering wheel too. I got to a point and that was as far as I could turn it, so that decided my speed through the corner.' One happy advance in F1 since the 1990s has been safety. Never mind cockpit halos: Coulthard's shoulders were fully exposed in the 1994 FW16. Again, a different dimension to the one that his son is entering. Yet fear of death was something Coulthard rationalised early on, in a manner that gets to the heart of what separates racing drivers from the rest of us. 'I crashed a Williams in testing at Silverstone, got knocked out, and it was a revelation,' he says. 'I realised if I was ever killed in a racing car, the moment when the lights go out wouldn't be filled with fear. When I was about to crash, my head was full of doing what you do to minimise the damage. The only difference from being knocked out and being killed is you wake up from being knocked out. So I didn't have to worry about being killed. 'I tried to explain that to my mother, got halfway through and she squealed: 'Stop, stop, stop!' Now, having stood at the side of kart tracks with my son wondering why I'm supporting him, of course you don't want them to be hurt, but what can you do? You have to support them, don't you? So yes, I'm happy he's racing in this era.' 'I don't want to be that guy who says 'it was better in my day', but I'm very happy with the era in which I raced,' he continues. 'The sport is bigger today; as a result, the values and salaries are higher. "But I've seen Gary Lineker talk about his salary when he was playing [from 1978-1994] versus modern Premier League footballers. You have to live for your time and, being a father, you want the next generation to be better. Evolution has left us a trail to suggest that is the case.' Coulthard approves of where F1 finds itself now, although he makes it clear what he thinks about fining racing drivers for swearing. 'The crowd's [booing] reaction to the FIA [at the season launch in London] would suggest this isn't a golden era of governance, that the public feels there's meddling in the raw emotion of what these gladiators do out on track.' 'But we will look back on this time as a golden era,' he continues. 'There's a golden generation right now of young, handsome, fast racing drivers in their prime – and we've got the outliers of Fernando and Lewis in their forties, to be a reference point for the brilliant young racing drivers who you and I are going to talk about for the next decade and more.' Join our WhatsApp community and be the first to read about the latest news and reviews wowing the car world. Our community is the best, easiest and most direct place to tap into the minds of Autocar, and if you join you'll also be treated to unique WhatsApp content. You can leave at any time after joining - check our full privacy policy here. Next Prev In partnership with

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store