RETRO DONE RIGHT
The resemblance is obvious, the hopes are high and the want is strong. Renault’s 5 is back
Your first glance at this crisp little concept puts one number in your mind Five Yup it’s a new Renault It’s not just candy whistled up for a non existent motor show or some designer dead end render doodle A production version will launch in under three years from now It’ll be all electric
Oh and as Renault resets the course for all its brands see p and Alpine goes electric it’s confirmed there’s a plan for an Alpine hot hatch version of this
The idea of a revived was something Renault’s designers had been nurturing for a long time But the company was in crisis and there was no money Then a year ago new CEO Luca de Meo arrived In that time he’s marshalled all the company’s expertise and come up with a bold new plan for the group including Alpine Dacia and Lada
The plan called Renaulution a name cheesier than ripe Camembert calls for pushing ahead with the firm’s lead in electric cars and also reducing the overlap with Dacia So the Renault cars need to be individual and noticeable His shake up also involves ditching seven planned cars and starting afresh with eight new ones
Suddenly an electric makes sense De Meo says he knows from experience that “if you reinvent a cult car it lights a fire under the whole brand” That experience? When he worked for Fiat he was largely responsible for getting the revived in
Meantime Gilles Vidal has been brought in from Peugeot as the Renault brand’s new design director Laurens van den Acker stays at the top of Group design So Vidal will be responsible for bringing the to the road Its details and proportions are super modern It has Vidal says finishes and details inspired by sports equipment and electronics The roof is skinned in fabric TopGear’s o ce Zoom sweepstake bets that production cars will go without that birdlime attracting detail
Would be nice to think the Alpine squad’s version will get some of the wide arch stying of this concept But you can bet the normal spec one will be slimmer than this for all the usual mundane production car constraints of weight cost and drag reduction
The Renault was in the first wave of superminis It was genuinely avant garde in its design a pioneer in integrated plastic bumpers when the industry mostly used bolt on metal jobs and no radiator grille either handy for an EV revival It was also useful and fun If you want to head down the ‘first hot hatch’ rabbit hole note the Alpine version was a hot hatch that predated the MkI Golf GTI
There’s a lot of the original in the new concept’s front and rear lights and also the profile and rear pillar shape plus the flattish surfaces Where the original had an o set air intake in the bonnet just ahead of the
windscreen this one has its charge port And the wheels make a nod to the original three knot hubs although they’re too complex to be recognisable I’m thinking the polygonal wheelarch blisters don’t quite manage to evoke the original’s flat topped cut outs but let’s enjoy the way they ri o the mid engined Maxi Turbo
Now is it OK or just lazy design to sweat your heritage like this? Well if it’s a good design then a bit of nostalgia can certainly add to the mix And anyway heritage is one of the things the incumbent carmakers have as a bulwark against the start ups When everyone’s making skateboard battery platforms with single speed electric drive any di erentiation surely matters
Renault has huge experience in small EVs thanks to the Zoe But the isn’t just a reskinned version Instead the will use an electric version of the second generation Renault Nissan small car platform
Renault insists the will be good value as a supermini saying it will “democratise the electric car” And smoke signals point to an even cheaper EV below it reprising the charmingly basic Renault The Clio will live on with its combustion and hybrid powertrains
Many people speculated that Renault already shaky in would become the major casualty of the pandemic But it’s bouncing back De Meo’s Renaulution plan involves making Renault more distinct and more globally uniform That’s good for clarity in the brand and saves money through simplicity cutting back on making too many di erent cars for too many di erent countries Renault will now chase profit rather than selling more cars at all costs Boring and heavily discounted big cars and estates just weren’t doing the business says De Meo so they’ll have to go
Critical elements are already turning around Renault has halved the cost of building its electric powertrains since it started a decade ago and now makes the same profit on an EV as on a petrol car This year’s all electric Megane will press home the advantage Renault’s excellent E Tech system is one of the cheapest hybrids to manufacture and will be used to make cars from bhp to bhp So the French are well placed for the new power revolution