1997 Renault Spider

The Renault Sport Spider, or project W94 as it was codenamed, debuted at the Geneva Motor Show in 1995 and was launched the year after, when the Williams Renault F1 team was enjoying great success with its Adrian Newey designed cars. Completely understandably, Renault's plan was clearly to capitalise on both this motor sport "moment in the Sunshine" with a multi national One Make Championship, and the sports car boom of the mid 90s, most visible in the number of Lotus Elise Mk.1s pouring out of the factory. Ultimately, although not as successful as they had hoped with only 1685 Sport Spiders being built, they did manage to create a fabulous little driver's car.

Powered by the 150bhp,16v four cylinder engine first seen in the Renault Clio Williams, and latterly in the original Megane 16v Coupe, and given it's relatively light weight, the Sport Spider turned out to be a positive "Road Rocket" with 60 mph. coming up in 6.9 seconds on its way to a maximum of 134mph.

Take a seat behind the wheel and you instantly know that this car means business; quite simply it's more race car than road car. A single aluminium bar dominates the dashboard with only three dials set into a central pod. A speedometer was not part of the package and a rev counter, oil and water pressure gauges were all that were deemed necessary. To complete the sports car feel, there are body-hugging Recaro bucket seats, a leather trimmed steering wheel and adjustable pedals to enable the driver to achieve the absolute optimum driving position. The windows meanwhile, pivot up to open, which is arguably practical and certainly distinctive. The Renault Spider championships ran for several years as a support series to larger championships such as British Touring Cars and groomed many fine racing drivers, including the hard charging Jason Plato.

Only 60 right-hand drive models were manufactured during its short production run of 18 months, and this particular example has covered only 3,290 miles from new as detailed on the MoT certificate dated the 2nd April 2015, making it a rare and interesting proposition.

Registered in the UK in 2013 the V5c shows no former keepers, however the car was registered in Ireland in 1997 and the SIMI Vehicle Data Check in the accompanying history file shows 2 keepers. This file also contains some receipts and invoices for servicing work, the original hand book and service book along with copies of the original registration documents.Renault Spiders always prove to be popular when we have offered them in the past, and with its low mileage and sensible guide price this one will not disappoint.