Triple Threat - En jaune

The early to mid 90s was a great era for Renault. With utter domination of F1 under their belt, they indulged in flights of fancy. The Espace F1 was a carbon fiber minivan constructed over the chassis and engine of a Williams F1 car.  The Renault Sport Spider was a barebones, affordable mid-engined sports car in the purest sense. Does anyone know the story of the bike pictured?

Here's a fun French video all about the outrageous Espace F1, featuring one Alain Prost au volant:

I also love this weird paint scheme used for the launch of the racing version of the Spider:

And last but not least, here is awesome footage of French rally legend Jean Ragnotti, who demonstrates the rally capability of a bone stock Spider:

Comments

[Sven]

hey, i guess the the bike is an early 90s honda cbr (sc28?) that was a huge succes in that time. but i don´t know the connection to renault´s sport or f1 programme. but who cares? a 800+ hp family van might be fun enough for the daily race to the kindergarten.
great blog btw!
sven from berlin/germany

[F1 Tommy]

I love the V10 F1 engined Espace F1 minivan. I have a small model of it from Provence Moulage. See.... the French do have a sense of homor:)

Tom Tanner/Scale Designs/Ferrari Expo 2012-Chicago March 17th 2012

[syed]

i can never get enough of that Spider video at the end......that Espace F1 van is INSAAAANE.......if they made it, i would have bought it...lol...imagine the look of people when you show up in a van and blow their doors off.

[Garage Equipment]

The Renault Espace F1 body structure was made from carbon fiber and there was a sequential box and automatic attitude control. Powered by a ten-cylinder engine offering an impressive 820 horsepower.

[motoringconbrio]

espace test drive:

http://tuninghistory.com/blog/899.html