Eric Troestler’s epic journey started with converting his forgotten French icon into a Dakar-ready warrior
Lying in the bath one morning last March, Eric Troestler, a Frenchman living in London, read a story in a car magazine about the annual Twing Raid, a rally for first-generation Renault Twingos.
“It sounded fun but I didn’t have a Twingo and had never driven one,” he says, somewhat surprisingly.
However, fate has a habit of striking at the most unlikely times. A week later Eric was talking on the phone with an old college friend still living in France who revealed something quite astonishing. Eric says: “He told me he had recently bought a house, which had come with an abandoned Renault Twingo that hadn’t been driven for six years.
“It was a Mk1 car from 1999; he was about to sell it for €300, but after hearing my story about the Twing Raid, he said: ‘We’ve known each other for 35 years you can have it.’ I was speechless!”
Inspired by the magazine article, Eric promptly decided to enter the car in this year’s Twing Raid, a 10-day adventure from northern Spain to Marrakesh in Morocco. It started at the end of February, involving around 450 Twingos.
The car would need preparing, of course, but fortunately Eric’s brother is a dab hand with the spanners and agreed to convert it to something akin to rally-raid spec.
“My brother agreeing to help was another stroke of good fortune,” says Eric. “The Twingo’s 1149cc engine is simple and reliable, so my brother had no concerns there and didn’t bother to uprate it. The car’s bodywork was in good shape too, so instead he concentrated on modifications.
For example, he fitted front and rear bash plates, raised the suspension by 5cm at the front and 6cm at the back, replaced the 13in wheels with 14in ones and fitted all-season van tyres with stronger sidewalls.”
Now fully invested in the project, Eric’s frère also removed the back seats and in the Twingo’s enlarged boot installed two spare wheels arranged side by side, along with a pair of fire extinguishers and sundry survival equipment.
He also fitted a false boot floor, below which is stored the precious tools and spare parts that Eric and his co-driver, Adam White, would require on the event.
Also in the boot, he rigged up powerful ancillary lighting for the inevitable night-time repairs. On the roof he fitted a rack for jerrycans of fuel and fresh water; the rack also features a powerful, full-width, forward-facing projector light. Eric is clearly delighted with the result.
He says: “From forgotten Twingo to rally competitor in just a few months! I can’t believe it, and I’m really looking forward to the adventure. More than two million Twingos were made and they are still very popular in France. As a Frenchman, it’s wonderful to be able to enter the rally at the wheel of my own.”
He’s already looking ahead to buying a second Twingo and, with luck, twisting his brother’s arm to fit the engine from a Clio RS 182 to it for the Twingo Cup competition. “My plan is to loan out both cars for others to also enjoy,” says Eric.
