- Shooting Star RENAULT -
			- The "Etoile Filante" - a turbine operated experimental car Text of presentation to the persons of English language, the Shooting star Renault. Article of CLASSIC CARS magazine (july 2000).
					TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS Engine : Turbine Turboméca type Turmo 1 – Power 270 bhp at 28.000 rpm. Transmission : Reduction drive bringing engine speed down from 28.000 rpm to 2.500 rpm. Brakes : Dunlop disks front and rear. Chassis & coachwork : Chrome-molybdenum tubular steel frame with stratified polyester body. Dimensions : 4.840 m long (overall) by 1.815 m wide by 0.990 m high. Weight : 950 kg. Top speed : About 330 km/h.
		THE STORY starts with a proposition. In 1954, Turboméca, a respected French turbine manufacturer for the aeronautical industry, approached the French car giant Renault about producing a special car exalting the benefits of gas-turbine technology. At the start of the decade, Rover had shown that turbines could be made to power cars by building JET 1, which was timed at 152 mph in 1952. Renault took up this challenge and appointed Fernand Picard (product engineering director) and Albert Lory (the designer of the 1927 eight- cylinder Delage grand prix car) to create the machine. The sleekness of the car, later named Etoile Filante (or Shooting Star), is a product of the wind tunnel. The era it was designed in is obvious – it looks just the kind of machine a cartoon science fiction character of the Fifties would use, with its wraparound screen and twin rear fins. These were designed for stability, but the art of controlling downforce was still ten years away, so there are no spoilers and the bottom is teatray smooth. The wheelarches complete the science fiction look because they are faired in. Beneath them is a set of Dunlop lightweight alloy wheels (as seen on racing Jaguars from the same age). Etoile Filante has a steel spaceframe chassis with trailing-arm front suspension and torsion-bar springs. Up-to-the-minute (for 1954) braking technology is used, with discs fitted on all four corners. Power for the Etoile Filante comes from one of Turboméca's turbine engines which gives 270bhp at 28.000rpm, burning paraffin instead of petrol. There is no conventional gearbox but a three-speed gear reduction system. Through originally a design project, it was decided that the Etoile Filante should try to break the land speed record for gas-turbine powered cars. In 1956, a team from Renault, including test-driver Jean Hébert, set out for America to make their attempt on the Bonneville salt flats. Renault's new small car, the Dauphine, had been launched the same year and Renault's director general, Pierre Dreyfus, realised it was an excellent way to promote the company and the new car in the lucrative USA. On September 5. 1956, Hébert clocked an average speed of 192,5mph in the Shooting Star, which put him in the record books. He still holds the record. Following this success, the car appeared on Renault stands at motor shows all over the world – gas-turbine motors were to be the forward. However, as the Fifties came to an end so did the trend of gas-turbines. Renault stopped construction of the second car – what happened to the sleek body is unknown. The original Etoile Filante became another exhibit in Renault's growing collection of historic vehicles : for the rest of the world, its part in the gas-turbine era was forgotten, its record neglected. Neglected, that is, until the mid-Nineties when it was decided the car should be restored with a view to it running again. The car was completely dismantled in the workshops of Renault's historic collection at the Billancourt factory in Paris, the chassis was resprayed and the engine repaired. In front of an expectant crowd, the car was fired up and moved under its own power for the first time since 1956. It covered three kilometres, but according to Patrick Landon, Renault's historic collection manager, there were three-foot flames coming from the side exhausts – the paint beneath the polished exhaust covers is burnt and bubbled. It is doubtful the car will run again. The rest of the car is immaculate, the French Racing Blue paint gleams, the swooping curves of the body are unmarked and the interior is like new. Perfect, then, for the car appearance in this year's Style et Luxe at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. A QUIRKY French streamliner may seem an odd choice for a concours event, but Goodwood's Style et Luxe is a celebration of style, no matter what the car. According to organiser Richard Sutton, the team from the Sussex event enjoy thinking up unusual categories. The team remembered Renault's Shooting Star, so a call was made to Renault. The French company was delighted to have one of its success stories remembered and a chance, at last, to make it familiar. It wasn't long before the car was entrant for the gas-turbine class, mixing with some familiar and unusual cars, including three Firebirds from Chrysler and two turbine cars from Rover's past : the original Rover turbine car, JET 1 (based on a Rover P4) and the last, the 2000 T4. While The Etoile Filante will be surrounded by turbine cars more familiar to the crowds, its secret history of record breaking (and its Fifties Dan Dare charm) will captivate them. It will, without doubt, be the shooting star of the show.