The dawn of the electric age is a time to rewrite paradigms, and Renault is absolutely crushing it. From bringing back the Renault 5 subcompact to announcing a 500-horsepower dual-motor rear-wheel-drive hyper-hatch, the brand is churning out some of the most exciting cars in Europe right now, and it’s not done yet. The Renault Twingo, a favorite European hatchback of extremely online car people, is getting an electric reboot that’s edging closer and closer to production. In fact, it’s expected to hit showrooms in 2026, which means it’s about time Renault dropped an update. Well, here it is, and not only is this the first time we get to see what the new Twingo’s interior will mostly look like, it only fuels the desire for this reborn ’90s icon.
If you aren’t familiar with the Twingo, don’t worry. The original version of this European city car dropped for 1993 and instantly became a cult classic thanks to its smiley appearance and upbeat vibe. Just one look at this hatchback gives you the impression that’s is absolutely overjoyed to be a car, and since humans will anthropomorphize anything, the Twingo hit home as an emotional vehicle with a certain zest for life. While the second-generation and third-generation models enjoyed minor success, they didn’t hit quite as hard as the original. Thankfully, Renault seems to be returning to the model’s roots.
First unveiled in concept form during the 2023 auto show season, Renault has just given everyone a better glimpse of what the incoming Twingo will actually look like thanks to this prototype version here. The brand told British outlet Autocar that not only is this iteration a running, driving car instead of just some non-functional concept model, but that it’s “90%-ready” for production. Obviously, there are still some outlandish things here in concept-car tradition, but the bones look solid.
Let’s start on the outside, where changes from the initial show car lead to a far more production-like appearance. A lot of fanciful concept car thinking like the illuminated door handles, vent-free front fascia, and lack of quarter windows in the doors has disappeared, giving us a better look at what’s actually to come. Thankfully, most of the exterior tweaks are fairly subtle. The taillights adopt a closed D-shaped form, the wheel arch trims have been slimmed down considerably, the side mirrors appear to be larger, and that’s about as far as tweaks go.
The big story with this prototype is on the inside, where the incoming Twingo actually gets an interior that looks surprisingly feasible. Sure, the cork floor probably won’t make it to showrooms, but not only does the dashboard seem to sport all the controls you could want, it actually looks fairly produceable. Right off the rip, functionality seems alright, with a classic three-knob layout for adjusting climate control functions, a hazard light switch that looks like a boiled candy, and Renault’s current touchscreen infotainment system displayed on a normal rectangular touchscreen. Add in the presence of an actual rearview mirror, and this cockpit looks quite plausible for production.
Of course, that’s good, because there are some seriously funky elements going on here. The big swath of exterior color-matched dashboard trim is a great way of brightening up the space without resorting to expensive textiles. It’s cheap and cheerful, exactly as a car in this segment should be. What’s more, the body color trim theme continues on the door cards, which seems like a nod to the spartan door trims of the original Twingo. Speaking of ’90s nostalgia, how about colorful seat fabrics? While the patterns seen in the Twingo prototype adopt a more Frutiger Aero look, the odd splatter of color is greatly appreciated. Oh, and just like in the original Twingo, the rear seat slides to balance rear seat space with cargo space. Nice.
While the last Twingo shared its architecture with the third-generation Smart Fortwo, this one’s all Renault, riding on a chopped version of the AmpR Small platform seen underneath the reborn Renault 5. As a result, don’t expect mind-blowing performance, but do expect a starting price of less than €20,000. That’s pretty damn cheap for an electric car developed and expected to be built in Europe, and the sort of car we could use here in America.
There’s still a place for retro design provided it’s done right, and the march of time combined with 20-year trend cycles means that it’s about time we saw more ’90s-inspired designs hitting showroom floors. Although the reborn Renault Twingo will likely never make it to America, we’re still stoked to see it unfold.
(Photo credits: Renault)
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Special thanks to the person who pointed out the three black vents on the hood above the passenger-side headlight to me.
Those better be functional.
Somebody make this team redesign the Element!
Only for Honda to decide not to sell it in the U.S. market . . . . sad trombone.
Well 2 paragraphs why the twingo works in Europe no information on why it works in the US.
What is the correct way to call it? Is it Twi-NGO or Twin-GO?
Twee-ngo.
This car is not for European cities – public transport covers all the issues with that due to decent public transport in pretty well all of them. The Twingo is hopefully for villagers or farmers who are able to charge at home. Then off to the nearest outlet for food.
Mostly farmers.
.. And farmers’ mums.
This is not my experience of Europe as a European.
We have many towns too big to walk around that are too small for a decent bus services. We have cities surrounded by suburbs which have “hub and spoke” bus services which only work if your destination is in the centre.
I can catch a bus to the centre of the nearest city every 15 minutes from a stop that’s only half a mile from my house, but to use buses to get to work I’d have to do an eight mile bus ride, change buses to do a seven mile ride, and still be three miles from work, so that’s over an hour on the bus (assuming no waiting time, and there is always waiting time) and nearly an hour of walking. It’s a five mile/ten minute drive. It’s only an hour and a quarter if I just walk straight there.
Catching the bus to the nearest shop is a half mile walk, a 0-15 minute wait, then a four minute bus ride. It’s only a mile to the shop. I can walk it in less time than the average bus trip, or I can drive it in two minutes and not have to carry my shopping home.
When travelling I often use local bus services and they work great, because I’ve planned my accommodation and destinations to suit them. But living with them is less useful if going to the dentist is a five hour round trip in several buses rather than twenty minutes in a car.
Will it be FWD like the original or RWD like the 3rd gen?
Want. I’m in the UK so I hope we get it. I was a student in Paris in 98/99 and was given a lift home from a party by a friend with a pink Twingo – her Twingo à la Fraise as she called it. Ever since I have had to describe all Twingos (Twingi?) by reference to fruit. Except for the green ones. Twingo à la Menthe anyone?
Twingo à la Citron Vert.
The want is strong, but of course we’ll never see it over here or the price will be too high. I absolutely adored the first-gen Twingo and thought it was a lot of car for the money.
All credit to the designers for a delightful and cheerful design, especially in this day and age of overwrought and angry being the trend.
Lovin’ it!
They also addressed a fairly big issue with the first gen Twingo: the long ass front doors are no more.
Those made those cars very easy to steal, and they remained the most broken into vehicle in France for a looooooong time.
How do the size of doors make them easier or harder to steal?
You have a lot of leverage to bend the edge of the door where the glass slides in the door.
This way you can easily bend the door, and slide your hand in the gap to reach the cable that operates the door lock.
Every French car is easy to steal.
When the Citroen XM came out it was advertised with an alarm that could withstand 16 minutes of “hacking”, which was considered a lot.
A TV crew paid a thief to try and steal a test vehicle so equipped – the guy got the car in 5 minutes, of which 4+ were spent on drying out the spark plugs, because he flooded it the first time he tried. It was all timed and everything.
Renault 30 (20?) could be opened with a kick in the front bumper. Safety unlock system in case of accident…
That’s 30-years.
Cobain’s been dead for 31 years.
But, I guess, that means I’ve to wait another 10 years to have a second chance to buy a new Honda Element.
Well, the first gen Twingo was built all the way to 2012, so it could still be thought of as a cultural touchstone of 20 years ago as well as 30 years ago.
Feel if the Renault/Nissan partnership hadn’t soured so much we could have gotten this as a new Versa Note/Micra. Who am I kidding, it still wouldn’t have sold in any meaningful quantities.
What about a 4th gen Smart car, or as an entry offering if Alpine shows up?
Smart doesn’t seem to want to come back to America, sadly.
Since Smart is pretty much all Geely these days then I don’t think ‘want’ is the word you are looking for here. I think ‘cannot’ is more the situation.
I would buy one of these in a heartbeat.
Looks gorgeous but that A-pillar is quite girthy.
As is the style of the time, feel like they could use some space age materials to have a strong thinner a-pillar but that costs the monies.
I only learned about these things from Shakira as a perjorative term for her ex’s new lady.
A small EV that I’d actually be interested in, and could probably afford? Of course it’s not going to be sold in the US.
I guess I’ll just have to stick with the original plan and eventually import a 90s Twingo. By eventually I mean probably never, because I already have 2 small friend-shaped cars, and don’t have room of any more, and neither of the ones I already have are going anywhere.
Keep in mind, with that price and size comes a small battery, and small range. I would be surprised if this thing can even do 200 miles on a charge which means it wouldn’t sell more than a dozen here.
That begs the question though, what “small friend-shaped cars” do you have??
Currently, I have a ’91 Miata and a ’95 Suzuki Alto Works, as far as friend-shaped cars go.
Oh dang. Can’t argue with those!
Also forgot about my 2015 500e. Not sure how I did either, since you brought up “small battery and small range” in your first reply.
200 miles of range would be over double what I get now, and I’m sure it would charge faster too, so I wouldn’t mind. Just wouldn’t be taking the Twingo on any road trips, in the alternate dimension where I could buy one.
Dude. I would love all three of those! I have the Miata, have looked so many times at the 500e, both old and new, and would love a sporty kei car! Your garage is awesome and I applaud your fantastic taste in cars!
I love it so much
I went to Paris in 2011, and I absolutely loved the Parisians attitude to parking. I saw two 1st gen Twingos parked with their bumpers INSIDE of each other.
I’ll never forget my first visit to France and being in a friend’s Twingo. Parking was back in till you hit the car behind, and successively hit bumpers front and back until wedged into the space. When I expressed my surprise since we don’t do that in America my friend simply said, “they’re called bumpers, aren’t they?”
They most certainly do this in NYC,
Parking by Braille – the Boston way!
That last line is always a heart breaker.
Tiny electric car, so I knew it going in, but it still stings every time. It would hurt less if that bit was at the beginning of the article instead of the end.
I mean that and the fact that Renault hasn’t sold a car in America in over 35 years.
Pfft. Details.
Come on now, something we actually want? Of course it’s not coming here. Even without that last line we knew where the story was going.
I want it – Take my money!
Oh – Can’t have it in America.
Because it’s not 18 feet long, 8 feet high and 6 wheel drive…
Twelve yards long, two lanes wide
Sixty-five tons of American pride!
1 Highway.
0 City.
Except cars like this existed and nobody bought them. Did you buy a Smart Car? Or maybe a Scion iQ? the issue with t these cars is the American cross section of things a car has to do with them is much broader. and with prices of thing the way they are, having one vehicle for one thing and another for city driving is often cost prohibitive. I think it is something like a third of Europe fits in Texas alone.
Yeah, the Fit had a good run. The Fiesta did…okay, I guess. The obvious brands like VW didn’t even bother with the Polo here. I’ve always said that nobody really has a problem with those cars, but when you look around at our big roads and cheap gas, it doesn’t cost much more to buy twice as much vehicle. And we have almost zero disincentives against it…in fact, when everyone else’s cars are getting bigger, there comes a point where you’re almost dumb NOT to buy a larger car. And so it continues.
And re: cost, the prices for that crop of cars got ever closer to larger sizes. Nobody has a problem with the type of car like you said, but I’ll add to it and say they’re not typically seeking them out either. Price is the biggest motivator especially with finance-driven car sales. Civics and Corollas and such were more plentiful in inventories and had higher incentives to boot, so not much reason to get a Fit or Yaris unless you were specifically seeking it out. Not like they were meaningfully more efficient either.
If we had to pay at the pump for fuel rather than paying for half of it out of our taxes in the form of Big Oil subsidies – we’d all have smaller cars.
Nah, we’d just have even more variations of “assume the position” stickers on trucks.
I looked at a Fit but Honda was asking stupid money for it so I walked away.
We’ve had eras where small cars did quite well, just not any recently. And the real problem with small cars is the average American’s cross section.
It’s not that. It’s reliability. Small cars died with CPO, in the US.
US roads and parking spaces are built around the F150. If you drive a vehicle smaller than a F150, you will have almost no problems with fitting into any road or parking space. I know, I’ve put 295k miles on a Sienna and have never had any issues with any parking space or room in a city in the US.
Back when, the question of new crap can vs used nice vehicle was a crap shoot. You had no idea of how the used car was treated and a lot of cars had major reliability problems at 5 years or so. But today, I can get a really nice used cars with a long CPO warranty that are in pretty much brand new conditions, for the same price of the few tiny Crapcans that are still on the market.
Since I can fit the car anywhere, why not get a CPO Rav4 over a Yaris? Sure, the Yaris might be more fun to drive (low bar set there by the Rav4), but if life changes and your SO decides to get into antiquing or you get a 6 month old puppy from the shelter that ends up a 6 week old Great Dane mix, or whatever, the Rav4 can handle these variations.
And given that more and more Americans are cash strapped and can’t have a fun car and a practical car, means the sales of small cars like the Yaris tanked.
I’m not following the connection between CPO and small cars.
CPO has been a thing for a long time and taken sales away from new stock, but that’s true across categories. CPO Lexuses haven’t caused Toyotaa to disappear.
They have caused the death of crap cans.
The two best selling cars in the 80s were the Escort and the Cavalier. They sold like hot cakes (400k a year wasn’t uncommon). Corollas, 323s, and other small cars sold nearly as well. In the 90s, this switched to Accords and Camrys and especially Explorers as people gained more confidence in cars lasting longer.
The reason why Toyota survived is that Toyota and Lexus moved up market. Toyotas today are as well featured as early Lexuses. We don’t see this, because EVERYONE has done this. A modern Corolla is the same size as a 20 year old Camry and has more features.
The names have remained to protect valuable brand image. A person buying a Lexus is showing off, a Toyota owner is being frugal, etc.
But the humble crap can with roll up windows and optional 5 speed and rubber floor mats is dead. Hell, it got shot in 1961 when Chevy had the Monza Package on the Corvair and it sold better than the 500 series. But CPO has completely killed it.
No – because I wanted more than two seats.
That didn’t prevent Peter Thiel from getting a SMART for his PA to run errands in tho…
(What a jerk)
Micro cars don’t make sense in the US. You can get something like a Trax for $22k. You can park that anywhere in the US, and can fit a lot of life into one without problems.
A microcar like the Smart or IQ has about 1/2 the useable space and would cost pretty much the same.
The Twingo is a possibility in the US with 4 seats and more room when the rear ones are folded down. As an EV, it might sell well if it has good range and costs about $22k like a Trax.
And we all know it isn’t going to be $22k.
The 500 sold as much as 47,000 a year here at one point, that’s not that terrible for that sort of car.
Of course, there were lots of other problems with the way the Fiat brand was relaunched and managed here that speak to wider issues within FCA/Stellantis which meant that they couldn’t sustain or build on that success
I’m reminded of a secretary at work telling me my Town Car wasn’t safe to drive at night because it was too low to the ground, and that I really needed a pickup like the one her husband made her get to replace her smaller SUV. For safety on dark roads. I mean, that’s one person, but I feel like these attitudes come from somewhere, somebody reading something on like 4chan or something, I don’t know
Just nip over to Canada and get one. Happens all the time.