The engineers creating the Turbo dug deep in the Renault parts bin in order to meet their goals: the rear suspension was derived from that of the rear-engined Renault Alpine A310 V6 while the five-speed manual transmission was the unit from the Renault 30 TX, rotated through 180 degrees. At the time of its launch, it was the most powerful production French car.

Once the homologation models were produced, a second version named Turbo 2 was introduced using more stock Renault 5 parts replacing many of the light-alloy components in the original 5 Turbo version, and dropping the stunning and specific Bertone seats and dashboard for the interior of the R5 Alpine. Many parts also became dark grey rather than the iconic red or blue.  The Turbo 2 was less expensive, but had nearly the same levels of performance, with a top speed of 200 km/h and 0–100 km/h in 6.9 seconds. To differentiate it from the Turbo 2, the original 5 Turbo is often referred as “Turbo 1”.