Helem V6 GTR

Be still, my bleeding Tricolore heart.

If you've been around here long enough, you know my to-the-core love for French cars, despite my genes containing little, if any, Gallic seasoning. I'm already a fan of the limited-run RenaultSport Spider, one of those cars that was tricky enough to drive that it turned Tiff Needell into a slithering mess on track. 

The Spider is one of those projects that touched several interesting items: it was made by RenaultSport in the old Alpine factory, had an aluminum chassis, plastic bodywork, and a mid-mounted 150 horsepower 4-cylinder engine. All good things.

At a decently lightweight 930 kg (2050 lbs)—come on, it had no roof!—it was quick but not earth-shattering. The one-make racing versions topped out at around 180 horsepower. Given its status at the top of the Renault range, with its own one-make series, the not-a-supercar Spider was only really designed to grab eyeballs…a long-term sports car project this was not.

Now, like how the record-setting Hennessey Venom GT had been built around Lotus Elise scaffolding, the Helem V6 GTR was based on the RenaultSport Spider. And, like the Venom, the Helem is a phoenix with substantially upgraded specs — including a wheelbase extended by 5 inches.

Helem's attempt wasn't, however, really built to be a road car.

Phonetically, this is obvious: "heL-eM" sounds a lot like "LM", for Le Mans.

The Helem was destined for FIA GT competition (GT2 and GT1), with a limited number of road cars to be built as a matter of course. Developed by RJ Racing, the Helem fixed three features of the production Spider: its lack of a roof, its lack of butterfly doors (they appeared on the concept but didn't make it to production), and its engine.

Gone was the weedy 4-cylinder, instead replaced by a twin-turbocharged Peugeot-Renault-Volvo (PRV) V6, derived from a former WCOTD, the Renault Safrane Biturbo.

Still think the PRV is trash? The Welter-Meunier P88 is the current top speed record-holder at Circuit La Sarthe, with 405 km/h (252 mph) recorded with thanks to its heavily modified PRV engine.