Last Sunday, May 31, Rodosa Collection Day was held, arriving at its fourth edition this year. It is an event promoted by the Rodosa family, owners of most Renault, Dacia and Alpine dealerships in the south of Galicia, and enthusiasts of the diamond badge and its other derived brands since their origins.
Rodosa possesses one of the best collections in the world of classic and racing Renault, Dacia and Alpine cars, some of them unique pieces that not even the Renault Group itself keeps at its headquarters in France.
For four years now, each year they bring out some of their collectible cars for the enjoyment of enthusiasts who travel from many parts of Spain and Portugal to Galicia with their Renault, Alpine and Dacia-branded cars to participate in Rodosa Collection Day.
This year almost all Renault Spider models currently in Spain gathered in Nigrán.
This year I had the enormous privilege of driving during the display one of their most treasured cars, the Renault 11 Turbo Gr.A, which served as the official car for the French driver Jean Ragnotti, in an experience I will never forget and which I want to share with you.
The Story of the Renault 11 Turbo Gr.A
To understand the rally car we’re looking at today, one must first understand the story of the street version. The Renault 11 was a successful model, though it never shone as brightly because it always stood in the shadow of its contemporary brother, the Renault 5.
The car retains the livery of Renault France as an official World Rally Championship entrant. Photos: Sito HC
After the FIA banned the Group B category, where the diamond-badge brand participated with the famous Renault 5 Maxi Turbo (there’s another very special unit of that model in Rodosa’s collection that I’ll talk about on another occasion), Renault opted to develop the Group A version of its Renault 11.
It did so under the Renault Elf Philips team structure, with the brand’s faithful driver Jean Ragnotti as the main protagonist. During the 1986 season it achieved victory at the Tour de Corse and a second overall place at the Rally of Portugal in the following season.
Photo Sito HC
Mechanically, under the hood the car houses a 1.4-liter engine paired with a Garrett T2 turbo that develops 185 HP at 6,800 RPM, and the weight was around 900 kilograms. A two-wheel-drive machine that held its own against four-wheel-drive rivals like the mighty Lancia Delta Integrale.
After its participation in the World Rally Championship, the car passed into the hands of Renault Portugal, which used it in the national championship without securing the championship title. Years later the car ended up with a Portuguese collector, who left it just as seen in the photos.
One of Rodosa Collection’s Jewels
Photo Sito HC
Rodosa preserves some of the best Renault and Alpine road and competition cars, including rally and circuit machines. This Renault 11 Turbo Group A arrived in the collection a little over ten years ago, and it is undoubtedly one of its most iconic pieces.
During the Rodosa Collection Day held every year in Galicia, one of the main attractions is the display of competition cars on a closed-off stretch in Nigrán. This year saw a parade of spectacular machines such as a Formula Renault, the Renault 19 Group A driven by the guest stars of this edition, Oriol Gómez, a Renault 5 Turbo, the Alpine A110 that competed last year in the Spanish Rally Championship, and this one that concerns us today, which I had the enormous privilege of driving for my own enjoyment and for the hundreds of fans who came to see them.
For me, driving an old car is always a pleasure, because I believe these cars convey more sensations than the newer ones we typically test in motor journalism. If the car is a race car, it carries its original colors and it makes noise, the experience becomes even bigger.
This one is also signed by the driver who pushed it fastest, an indefatigable Jean Ragnotti who remains active and regularly participates in exhibitions with the brand’s cars. In the photos you can see the exact moment when Ragnotti signed the car, both on the hood and on the interior door panel.
Impressions Behind the Wheel of the Renault 11 Turbo Gr. A
First thing I like is that, basing the car on a sedan, it is quite spacious, and getting into the driver’s seat isn’t particularly tricky. You just need a bit of flexibility to pass your feet over the side anti-roll bars, and once inside, there’s plenty of room.
After spending a few hours under the sun at the Rodosa Collection Day display by the beach, the car was somewhat overheated and the interior heat was substantial. Fortunately, it has a roof vent that opens as you would open a practicable sunroof.
Although the route we were going to take didn’t allow us to fully exploit the engine or push it through corners (it was a straight section of barely 700 meters that we could run in both directions), the experience was nonetheless very beautiful.
The engine started up at the first turn of the key after engaging the fuel pump and the ignition. The sound of the engine and the racing exhaust is “the old-school” one. It has nothing to do with the noise of today’s cars, which are either tuned by emissions filters or simply lack an emotional sound due to electrification.
The bucket seats with five-point harnesses fixed to the rear brace that runs across the back of the car are comfortable and fairly spacious. They hold you just enough, and especially the side supports on the seat back anchor you more firmly to the seat.
At the rear, the spare wheel, anchored to the central area of that hollow rear, empties out and, as is always the case with these cars, acts as a resonant chamber.
I’ve had the luck of driving several Rodosa Collection cars, from the Renault 5 Turbo to the Turbo 2 or the Renault 8 Gordini, and all of them are in perfect maintenance, which makes the experience of driving them much more enjoyable.
The Renault Twizy that escorted us was the camera car to capture the moment on video.
The same was true for the Renault 11, whose clutch functioned as if it were new, with superb smoothness and travel. This makes it easy to keep it at a fairly high rev regime, as such a car demands, so that its mechanics truly perform well in an environment that isn’t exactly ideal.
And indeed during the display we were able to explore first and second gears briefly, but long enough to feel how the turbocharged character drives everything, with a noticeable lag below 3,000 RPM that completely changes once you pass 4,000 RPM and the turbo starts to whistle, trying to unleash the front axle.
It was a beautiful and sufficient experience to imagine what pilots like Jean Ragnotti and his contemporaries must have lived through racing these tough old rally cars, such as the Acropolis Rally, with its extreme temperatures and broken, gravely stages.
I left for home with a huge smile on my face, a new driving experience in a car I would never have dreamed of piloting, and above all after having enjoyed Rodosa Collection Day so much, an event that shows how alive car passion remains.
It remains more alive than ever thanks to private initiatives like this and to the passion of the people behind these events, and all of that is even more commendable today, in times when some in Brussels’ offices impose a path that even they do not understand why it was chosen for the modern automotive world in Europe. Thank you, Rodosa!
