205 WISH FOR A TURBO...

It looks like it's not just us Rally Ravers giving our cars a makeover. I spotted this on social media and snorted out my coffee. The owner has tried to turn a small, Japanese 'kei' car (vehicles subject to strict length, width, and power constraints to qualify for significantly lower road tax, insurance, and parking costs in Japan) into a fire-breathing European rally monster.

Gawd bless 'em, they have gone to town on a shopping cart on wheels to try and make it resemble a Renault 5 Turbo. Back in the day, the 5 Turbo was an absolute beast of a machine; this tribute just isn't. As some bright spark quipped, "This is what you get when you order a rally car off Wish".

So what is it? After a bit of research, the donor car turns out to be the Daihatsu Esse, a Japanese microcar designed to be practical, fuel-efficient, and accessible which is the polar opposite of the 5 Turbo which only has two seats, drinks fuel like a sailor drinks rum on shore leave and has no boot (or back seat) as it is filled with engine.

The Esse comes with a 660cc 3-cylinder naturally aspirated engine producing a whopping 58 hp. For those who need more performance, there is a sportier version that, like the Renault 5, has a turbocharger (the word 'sportier' is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that last sentence). The full-rally version of the 5 Turbo pumps out an insane 350+ hp, in comparison.

One big advantage the Esse has over its French counterpart is that it was available in Four Wheel Drive; the 5 Turbo had to make do with Rear Wheel Drive. It is also 250 kg lighter and 20 years younger - in your face Mr So-Called-Rally-Car-For-The-Road! Ahem...

Joking aside, these two cars share almost nothing except four wheels and the fact that they're both technically 'small.' The Esse embodies the philosophy of doing more with less - maximum efficiency, minimum everything else. The R5 Turbo defines the complete opposite: taking something small and making it violently, irrationally fast for sporting glory.

Kudos to the owner, though, for creating something stunning looking from something so boring - it takes a special kind of maniac to spend so much time on something so daft. Stuck in traffic, that little car will be going as fast as everything else, but looks like it could do the 0-60 sprint in under 6 seconds like its muse. Truth is, there is more life in an urgent note.