We photographed the Renault Super 5 pictured below on the outskirts of a small village located in the southwestern part of Belgium. A sticker on the bottom right corner of the rear window hints that it hasn’t been on the road — or, at least, that it hasn’t been registered — since 2011.
Run-of-the-mill Renault Super 5s are worth absolutely nothing in France, so a growing number of them are ending up junked, abandoned in fields, or simply forgotten about on parking lots. This one is likely no exception, it was just a stone’s throw from the French/Belgian border and it’s starting to get a little rough around the edges.
However, the 5 you see below is a little bit special because we found it right across from where the massive car graveyard in Chatillon used to be. It’s all gone now, the cars were cleared out years ago, but the word hasn’t gotten out and locals told us that folks still trek out there hoping to see hundreds of cars in the clearing. In a way, this 5 is their consolation prize.
For me the 5 – both original and Supercinq – are the ones that got away – never owned one which annoys me greatly. Supermini’s from the late 60’s through to the early 90’s were in my view the pinnacle of simple cheap effective motoring for the masses – nowadays they are too bloated and complicated really.