The Renault Sport Spider is a roadster produced by the French automaker

Renault Sport Renault Sport () or Renaultsport, was a motorsport, performance and special vehicles division for Renault-badged cars and later a sub-badge of Renault cars managed by Automobiles Alpine, Alpine. The first Renault Sport was officially established ...

, a subsidiary of

Renault Renault S.A., commonly referred to as Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English), is a French Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company curr ...

, between 1996 and 1999.

Project

The idea for the Renault Spider was formulated in the early 1990s: in the midst of a revival after a difficult second half of the 1980s, Renault wanted a car to promote it as a sporting brand (similar to the Renault 5 Turbo from a decade earlier). The Spider was intended to both serve as a

racing In sports, racing is a competition of speed, in which competitors try to complete a given task in the shortest amount of time. Typically this involves traversing some distance, but it can be any other task involving speed to reach a specific g ...

car, in a one-make series organized by Renault, and as a road car. The first

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototype ...

s for Project W94, as it was known at the time, were completed in mid-1994 and a

concept A concept is an abstract idea that serves as a foundation for more concrete principles, thoughts, and beliefs. Concepts play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied within such disciplines as linguistics, ...

version was presented to the public at the

Geneva Motor Show The Geneva International Motor Show was an annual auto show held in March in the Swiss city of Geneva. The show was hosted at the Palexpo, a convention centre located next to the Geneva Cointrin International Airport. The Salon was organised b ...

a year later. The car went on sale in early 1996, assembled at the

Alpine Alpine may refer to any mountainous region. It may also refer to: Places Europe * Alps, a European mountain range ** Alpine states, which overlap with the European range Australia * Alpine, New South Wales, a Northern Village * Alpine National P ...

factory in

Dieppe Dieppe (; ; or Old Norse ) is a coastal commune in the Seine-Maritime department, Normandy, northern France. Dieppe is a seaport on the English Channel at the mouth of the river Arques. A regular ferry service runs to Newhaven in England ...

. Left hand drive versions were first produced with an aeroscreen device the same as the race cars. In 1997, a version with a full glass windscreen and wiper was made available. Approximately 1640 cars were produced through 1999, with the addition of around 80 race only versions. The UK market only imported the windscreen version and 60 right hand drive cars were produced for the UK and Japan. The naturally aspirated 2-litre F7R engine produces . Although it was built by Alpine in Dieppe, the Spider was the first ever road car badged as a Renault Sport and the Brand name has subsequently been used for all high performance Renault cars that are developed by the Renault Sport division which is a separate company with the Renault-Nissan Alliance.

Features

Designed from the outset as a driver's car, the chassis was made of

aluminium Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has ...

for its combination of low weight and substantial strength, while the actual bodywork is a plastic composite. Unusually, the Spider did not have a roof, either folding or hard-top. The

gearbox A transmission (also called a gearbox) is a mechanical device invented by Louis Renault (who founded Renault) which uses a gear set—two or more gears working together—to change the speed, direction of rotation, or torque multiplication/r ...

and the engine were one unit transversally fixed in an oscillating hinge (an arrangement inspired by aeronautical design), which all but eradicated the interference of engine vibration with the

chassis A chassis (, ; plural ''chassis'' from French châssis ) is the load-bearing framework of a manufactured object, which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. An example of a chassis is a vehicle frame, the underpart ...

, and the pedals of the Spider were adjustable as well as the seat so the driver could achieve a better driving position. Power for the Spider came from a version of the 2-litre ''F7R'' engine from the Clio Williams and Mégane Coupe, producing . Either a windscreen model (965 kg) or a small wind deflector model was available (930 kg). The driver wearing a helmet in vehicles without a windscreen. File:RenaultSport Spider - Flickr - The Car Spy (16).jpg, Rear view (UK) File:RenaultSport Spider - Flickr - The Car Spy (11).jpg, 2-litre ''F7R'' engine File:RenaultSport Spider - Flickr - The Car Spy (20).jpg, Interior (UK)

Spider in motorsport

From the outset the Spider was intended to be the basis for a new one-car racing series. Renault had been running these championships since the early 80s with the 5 Turbo, 21 Turbo, and Clio models. A special Spider Trophy edition was designed and built for the purpose, with the engine tuned to produce . The Spider championships ran for several years as support series to larger championships such as the

British Touring Car Championship The British Touring Car Championship (BTCC), officially known as the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship for sponsorship reasons, is a touring car racing series held each year in the United Kingdom, currently organised and administered by ...

(in which it is remembered for having produced one of that series' top drivers of recent years,

Jason Plato Timothy Jason Plato (born 14 October 1967) is a British auto racing, racing driver who last competed in the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) for BTC Racing. He has twice been List of BTCC champions, BTCC Champion, in 2001 British Touring ...

, who won 11 out of 14 races in the inaugural year of the UK Spider Cup). In 1999

Andy Priaulx Andrew Graham Priaulx, Order of the British Empire, MBE ( born 7 August 1974) is a British people, British racing driver from Guernsey. In 2019 he raced for Chip Ganassi Racing, Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK in the FIA World Endurance Championship, ...

beat Plato's record of eight successive race wins in the Spiders by taking a clean sweep of 13 wins in all 13 races. He also qualified for each one on pole position and took fastest laps in all but two of the events. File:Renault Sport Spider Targa Tasmania 2008.JPG, Renault Sport Spider Targa Tasmania 2008 File:RedBackRacing Renault Sport spider Trophy.jpg, Renault Sport Spider Targa Tasmania 2007

Motorsport specification

* Power: @ 6000 rpm, torque 184.4 Nm (136.0 lb·ft) @ 4500 rpm * Redline: 6800 rpm * Weight: * Front brakes: , front wheels , tire size 205/50VR-16 * Rear brakes: , rear wheels , tire size 225/50VR-16 * Transmission: 6-speed

Sadev Sadev is a French company that designs and manufactures transmission systems for racing and high-performance vehicles. Precision machining subcontractor and motorsports enthusiast Benoît Vincendeau established Sadev in 1974. By the early 1980 ...

sequential * Top speed: ~, ~5.8 seconds, mile ~14.1 seconds

References

External links

Renault Sport Spider German Website
��Offering photos and videos. International Spider Register
RenaultSportClub - Anything from R5 Alpine to R.S. Clio 220T Trophy
{{Renault Rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive vehicles

Spider Spiders (order (biology), order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight limbs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude spider silk, silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and ran ...

Roadsters Sports racing cars Cars introduced in 1996