I’m struggling to think of a recent car release that’s captured the imagination of enthusiasts and the public as much as the new Renault 5 E-Tech Electric has. Pretty much every time I parked up, and on one occasion on the road when I was popping out to get Fifi yet more cat food (she’s eating like she’s got kittens on board at the moment), strangers were looking and waving phones at it. It’s a good job, I love attention and never leave the house without my sunglasses on.
Not all reactions have been universally positive, mind you. My therapist, who drives an E Class convertible, wrinkled her nose when I mentioned I was getting a Renault press car. And my uncle (Skoda Yeti 4WD), who is into classic British stuff, asked me if the new 5 was “electric, or a real car.” So the new 5 – dispensing with the E-Tech suffix because, as we’ll see, it’s completely superfluous – might still have a few holdouts to win over. Including, initially, your humble author.
When the 5 first appeared as a concept in 2021, my initial reaction was it was a bit of a contrived attempt to sell reluctant consumers a small EV by trowelling on the heritage. When the production version began appearing, I hadn’t really shifted my thinking – I thought there was simply too much ‘design’ going on for such a small car. But one of the occupational hazards of using different words from everyone else is that occasionally you have to eat them. This appears to be a rare instance of me getting it wrong, and I’m big enough to admit it, so it’s a pleasure to report that those phone wavers were right. In meat space, the new 5 looks bloody brilliant.
Why The Original 5 Was So Revolutionary
The original 5 was born from Renault wanting to broaden its front wheel drive offerings in the late 1960s. Renault already had the rugged 4 and the larger family-sized 6, but Head of Planning Bernard Hanon wanted something smaller and more stylish to attract younger urban buyers. Working on his own time, designer Michel Boue began sketching over the mechanicals of the 4. When management saw what he was up to, Project 122 got the go-ahead. Renault couldn’t have known at the time that across the Alps in Italy, Fiat was working on a similar idea, but Europe was slowly realizing the packaging and economy benefits of front wheel drive. Using existing mechanicals from the 4 shortened the development time, but meant carrying over the longitudinal engine installation with the gearbox at the front of the car. This led to early 5s having a convoluted shift linkage with the gear lever sprouting horizontally from the dash. Cleverly, Renault packaged the spare wheel under the hood in the unused space. Despite this engineering oddness, when it was announced in January 1972, the chic little Renault was a sensation. Available in bright summery colors with an off-center hood intake and pioneering wrap-around polyurethane bumpers, it made the front wheel drive BLMC ADO16 look like a dated middle England crock. Although the Fiat 127 beat the 5 to market by 12 months or so, no other European maker would have anything comparable in the new supermini class for at least three years. Five million Renault 5s were sold over 12 years before the introduction of the Gandini-designed SuperCinq in 1984. Fun to drive, attractively designed, and genuinely advanced, it’s no wonder La Regie wanted to sprinkle some 5 magic on its latest small hatch.
Renault’s previous EV supermini, the Zoe, was screwed on top of the old Nissan-Renault B platform as used by, amongst others, the Nissan NV200. Ahem. The 5 uses a new dedicated EV platform called Ampr Small, which will soon be found underneath the forthcoming 4 and Twingo EVs. It’s not all brand new, though. There’s no point reinventing components customers can’t see when you’ve got a huge corporate toy box of parts you can rummage through. The front axle is from the well-regarded Clio hatch, and the independent rear suspension (as opposed to a cheap, simple twist beam) is pinched from the four-wheel drive version of the Dacia Duster.
In between those axles, you have a choice of two battery sizes. A smaller, 42 kWh three-module pack quaintly dubbed ‘urban’, and a larger four-module 52 kWh pack named ‘comfort’. Probably because the quoted WLTP 250-mile range for the bigger battery is more comfortable in day-to-day use than the 192 for the smaller one. Urban packs come with a 120 bhp motor, Comfort with 150 bhp. Both battery sizes are available across all trim levels, but the bargain basement Evolution trim is only available with the lesser one. The car our friends at Renault UK lent me was a Techo Comfort: the bigger battery and motor in its lowest available trim level, yours for £26,995 ($36,745) on the road, including taxes. This is a little above the headline £22,995 ($31301) for the boggo Evolution and specifying anything other than Kermit’s ballsack green paint is extra. Other than paint, exterior options across the range are limited to different sticker sets, some of which plaster a bloody great number 5 across the roof and are probably best avoided. On the inside, there are a few different 3D printed lids available for the center console, but the funky yellow interior seen in all the media images is only available on the top spec Iconic 5 – £28,995 ($39,468). If you want more kit, you need to step up a level – a straightforward approach we’ve seen before with Renault’s sensible brand Dacia.
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About The Design
Sitting squat on the road with a wheel at each corner, the 5 is unapologetically a car. It’s not a low crossover, or a crossover pretending to be a car, or any of that nonsense other OEMs say to try and convince us what we’re looking at is not actually what seeing. The 5 doesn’t have a raised ride height or a stupid sweeping roof line. It’s simply the classic 5 silhouette scaled up a bit in all three axes. At 154” (3922mm) long, 59” (1498mm) high, and 70” (1774mm) wide, this is still a small car. It’s within an inch or two of a Mini Cooper all over, which has only three doors and significantly less fresh air inside. Quoted curb weight is a little over 3200lbs (1460kgs), of which 654lbs (297kgs) is accounted for by the cell pack alone. A non-hybrid ICE Clio checks in at 2430lbs (1100kgs), so cells aside, it’s a wash. The overall height is disguised slightly by the fact that the wheels are 18,” but they roll on juicy 55-section sidewalls.
At the top of this review, I said that in terms of the exterior design, I thought there was a lot going on for a small car. On big cars, you have a lot more room to work, and things like feature lines and color breaks help a lot in disguising bulk. With small cars, you need to be careful because your canvas is not as large. Additional visual flourishes simply don’t have as much room to breathe. When it comes to the 5, I could live without the chamfered line around the wheel arch openings, but at the rear it does neatly lead into the taillights, giving a little homage to the original box arches on the first 5 Turbo. The rest of the exterior works brilliantly in hinting at the 1972 car without leaning into bad parody, and there’s something about the body colored roof that feels truer to the earlier 5.
Neat details abound inside and out. The ‘lit corners’ graphic of the DRL/indicator lights is repeated on the vents inside, leading to a consistent applied theme. The off-center 5 symbol on the hood has five segments that light up when unlocking to show the state of charge. The headlights contain a tiny Tricolore and a stylized cockerel, the national symbol of France, which is replicated in the bottom corner of the windscreen. The drive mode stalk is squared-off gloss black plastic, meant to resemble a lipstick. This isn’t a gimmick; it provides haptic separation from the other two stalks on right-hand side of steering column, ensuring you don’t stick the thing in reverse when going for the wipers.
It’s Nice Inside As Well
Overall, the interior is a genuinely nice place to be. In the front, there’s plenty of room and the seats are lovely. The fabric is made from recycled plastic bottles, but you’d never guess. The base cushion is soft and squishy, perfect for my boney tuchus, and the squared-off side bolsters hold you ever so gently like you’ve been caught en flagrante with your illicit lover. So very French. Matching fabric pads out the dashboard, with a vertical stitching pattern on the passenger side referencing the old 5. Only the front door cards have any fabric on them, the rears are all plastic. Clambering into the back, I could sit behind myself but only just. My knees were pressing into the driver’s seat back, although elbow and headroom were bountiful. I wouldn’t even attempt to contort my supermodel legs into the back of a Mini. Being a front-wheel-drive EV with all the associated mystery boxes shoved under the hood, there’s no frunk, but trunk space is a generous 11 cu ft (326 liters) with a small underfloor cubby for the charging cable.
From behind the wheel, visibility is great. Because the 5 has a normal hood shape, you can see the front corners. All this is good because, despite being achingly hot off the press, the 5 is not overburdened with intrusive and opaque ‘driving aids’ that fire incessant bongs at you as soon as you slip the car into drive. This Techno trim has the minimum legally mandated technology, and that’s it. There’s driver attention monitoring, lane keep assist, speed limit warnings, active emergency braking, and a reversing camera. No blind spot warnings, no auto parking, no lane centering, no automatic braking when reversing. No half assed self-driving. It doesn’t even have front parking sensors. All the active safety stuff must default to on when you start the car, but you can save a profile with your preferred settings and access it with one button on the right-hand side of the dash. In other words, no big deal.
There are hard controls for the HVAC and proper haptic controls on the steering wheel for playing around with display configurations, answering the phone, and setting the cruise control. The stereo controls, thankfully updated from the nineties Clio spec part still found in the Alpine A110, are on the right-hand side of the column below the wiper stalk and integrate perfectly with wireless CarPlay (or filthy Android Auto). The native Renault software features are built on full Google integration, so you have to sign your life away to take full advantage of things like smart route planning and voice-controlled search. Google also powers the Reno digital avatar, who kept popping up uninvited to introduce himself. I went full David Bowman on the annoying little squirt and just stuck to using CarPlay. Amusingly, if you have Apple Maps open on the center screen without setting a destination, it’s possible to have the driver’s display showing Google Maps at the same time. I was also unable to connect the My Renault phone app to the car, although Renault PR told me that, like a personal banking app, it could only be active on one phone at a time for security reasons. Some other media wag had probably forgotten to disconnect.
On The Road
The charm of the original 5 wasn’t just its chic appearance and pioneering format. It was also brilliant to drive. Direct unassisted steering, a great shift feel, and usual for the time loping French ride quality meant handling was a bit roly-poly pudding and pie, but they hung on gamely. We’ve all seen images of the old model on the door handles about to have an almighty tank slapper. Such bad mannered body control is a thing of the past, but the overall feeling driving the new 5 is a sense of immense chuckability. I internally raised an eyebrow when the PR person informed me the 5 would do great on bendy roads, but they weren’t wrong. It’s a total hoot. The wheel at each corner stance and diminutive size mean it willingly rotates into a tight corner like a little French go-kart. The steering doesn’t especially weight up when you’ve got a load on into a corner, but it does whisper what the road surface is like and is accurate and responsive without being too eager. It feels very much like a Mini without the extra layer of boisterousness they contain. The 5 is more grown-up and less of a hooligan than the British car, but no less fun for that.
The brakes are outstanding. It’s a complete brake-by-wire system; there’s no mechanical connection between the pedal and the pads. What this means in practice is that the extremely firm pedal modulates braking more by pressure than the amount you move your ankle. This did mean a bit of abrupt pulling up until I got used to the sharpness of their operation. There’s only one regen mode and the calibration is excellent. The blending between conventional braking and regen is completely seamless. Coming to a full stop requires a dab of the pedal, so it’s not completely one pedal driving, and to be honest, I think I prefer it this way as it feels safer and more normal.
150 bhp and 3200 lbs sounds like the wrong side of an acceptable power-to-weight ratio, but the beauty of EVs is all the torque is down at the bottom. Traction control off, the 5 is quite capable of scrabbling the front tires. 0-60 is quoted as 8.5 seconds, so away from the lights, a hot hatch from the eighties and nineties wouldn’t see which way it went. The 5 never feels like it’s running out of go at highway speeds right up to the limiter. It’s more than capable of whizzing past a dawdling semi at 60. That weight does require quite stiff springs and dampers to hold in check though, so the ride can feel a touch firm. I thought I was imagining things, but swapping back into my Mini on Tuesday, my own car felt plusher.
EV Stockholm Syndrome
The most remarkable thing about the new Renault 5 is, in a lot of ways, how unremarkable it is. With previous generations of electric vehicles, there was always a bit of Stockholm Syndrome around them – “if you pump your tires up to a hundred psi, charge every other full moon and hypermile behind 747s you can get 4 miles per kWh”. The ownership experience required accepting a ton of compromises for being at the bleeding edge – whether it was putting up with alien styling in the name of aero efficiency, control interfaces more akin to a medical appliance or simply a crappy range and charging experience. Frutiger Aero interiors built on shonky lightweight plastics and a baffling array of drive modes all aimed at extracting every last drop of efficiency from an inherently compromised vehicle. I achieved 4.3 miles per kWh without even trying. Because I didn’t need to. I saw 238 miles of range at 100% charge, and when I took it back, 56% remained for an indicated 126 miles left. Previous EV press cars I’ve borrowed, the Honda e and Mini Cooper wouldn’t even do 126 miles fully charged. When I tested the Honda e, its thoughtful tech-heavy design felt like the car from Cupertino we were never going to get. Now, two years and a failure in the market later, it’s easy to see how a limited range and high purchase price doomed it.
The 5 isn’t like that at all. It feels like a completely normal, well-designed modern car that just happens to be electric. Jump in, press the on button, tap the lipstick to select reverse, drive, or drive with regen, and that’s all there is to it. It’s so normal and fit for purpose that driving home from the Renault press office in the Mini, I momentarily forgot to use the clutch when downshifting, so quickly I had adjusted to not changing gears like some sort of prehistoric human.
If you can’t charge at home or work, you could use the 5 for running around all week without worrying about range and then just stick in on a high-speed public charger for less than an hour at the weekend. You’ll pay for that convenience – the Osprey network charger I used managed a charging rate of over 75kWh but stings you $1.13 (82p) per kW for the privilege. To fill up the 5 at that rate would cost $58.49 (£43), making it more expensive than gas. That’s an infrastructure issue though, not the fault of the 5 which, true to form, has been reinvented as an affordable slice of French style that once again happens to do something pioneering in the supermini segment. First and foremost, the 5 is desirable simply as an affordable, lovely little car. Going by the online discourse, it looks like it’s going to pull off the impressive feat of cutting right across socio-economic classes as well. The fact that underneath lies a state-of-the-art EV is completely secondary.
BRING. THIS. TO. THE. US. badge it as a nissan5, i dont care. i want one as my next car
Hats off too the French, will continue to never get them this side of the pond.
Je veux ça 5
I love the baguette basket. Standard?
See my reply down thread. Let’s just say it appears to be standard in the press cars.
Another example of how screwed up the comments part of this site is ordered. PLEASE fix this!
In the late 70’s I drove my gf’s LeCar a lot and it was the most flingable car I had ever driven up to that point. Hated the vertical mount radio though – always wondered if that was a US-only thing.
When you are forced to eat your words, do they taste like salt and vinegar?
Thank you for the useful critique of Renault’s latest geaux cart, another desirable car not available in the U.S. Oh, the Gaul!
They taste like ashes in my mouth.
I assume you’re referring to actual ash, as opposed to the Sean Connery pronunciation of ‘ass.’
Alex Trebek wasn’t impressed.
I’ll take “the rapists” for $500 Alecsh.
I’ve never met this man.
That’s what your mother said, Trebek!
Goddamnit, Adrian. You’ve re-ignited my desire for one of the original Renault 5s. Would I be interested in the new 5? Definitely, but over here in Americaland that’s not happening. The original 5 is on my list for a dream garage, you know, the wholly impractical list that we have that when we’re all impossibly wealthy we’d put together. Yeah, the 5 is on my list, along with 4 Saabs, Citroen, VW, Austin-Healey, Mercedes and Porsche.
Back to the new 5, this is the first EV I’ve read about and would actually go and test drive. Americaland, dammit.
I would buy this if it were sold in the US. Nissan needs to bring this over, just as it is. You hear me Nissan? This thing! Here! Without fucking it up!
Nissan not fucking it up? In what reality is that happening?
Pretty clearly, not this one. Given that they don’t seem to offer any hybrids/PHEVs in the US (if you don’t count the Mitsubishi Outlander), they are quite committed to the “fucking it up” bit.
Have you seen the new Micra (March)?
I haven’t, actually. It hasn’t made much of a splash in the American publications/websites. Is it any good?
It’s an obvious reskin of this.
But they aren’t even trying to think about selling it here. Idiots.
I… don’t hate how the Micra looks. I could see being relatively happy with that. If they, y’know, sold the dang thing here.
They would have to Federalize it for American roads, though. Which means lifting it 2″, slapping at least 100lbs of quick-fading black plastic on it, and increasing the price by 20%.
See “not fucking it up” above.
Taillight ratios aside, that’s a nice looking car especially in that color. I’d drive it.
Because of the charging situation an EV won’t work for me otherwise I would happily own one of these.
I’ve got a garage with plenty of outlets so I’m completely open to owning an EV as soon as one comes along that is as fun to drive and not too much more expensive than my BRZ. Oh, and apparently not manufactured by a nazi is now a requirement as well.
Sounds perfect! To bad I’m on the wrong side of the Atlantic.
I’d love to like car this as a Renault 5, but I just can’t (ditto for the 4 E-Tech). While both seem like very obectively good, cheap EVs, I hate that they went for the nameplates and not much else in terms of design. I think you’re generous when saying the design is a bit busy. It’s way too much, and at the same time, in a very specific way, not enough. What it has in excess regarding small, incoherent details, it more than makes up for with the lack of actual styling cues from the original, save for the general shape and the tallights (if you squint hard enough). And in person, that effect is even more noticeable. I know it’s hard to make a small car these days, but I wasn’t expecting it to look as big as it does in person. The shape of the original is there, but it looks bloated and heavy.
But hey, it’s their brand, and I hate gatekeeping. I love old Renaults; I don’t really care for what Renault has become since 96. I’t just that it kinda hurts to see current Renault shamelessly co-opting the very thing they hated about old Renault – the basic, cheap and durable subcompacts that didn’t make them much money per unit.
Ultimately, I’d rather be surrounded by these than by gigantic SUVs, though. And it’s cool that they have some nice choices of colours (but I’m willing to bet the paint options don’t come cheap, I have yet to see a non-white one in “the wild”).
You have to evolve a heritage design for it to land, which this does. If you just shamelessly copy the original it resonates on social media but customers won’t buy it because they don’t want an old fashioned looking car.
I’m not speaking of a shameless copy, just something more middle of the road that got at least a couple of aethetics nods to the original right in terms of detail. They made the design busy with all the wrong small details I think. The fascia is particularly bad in my opinion. To me, it seems like an agressive grin and not a friendly smile, as the original evoques. I don’t know, I think they could have come up with a much better design without losing customers due to it being too old fashioned.
But it’s fine for what’s it’s meant to do – move units and appease shareholders. And again, in an automotive landscape that looks more and more like a remake of a Tati’s ‘Playtime’ with SUVs everywhere instead of Simca 1300s, I’d much rather be surrounded by these.
Somewhat unexpected take!
As someone who grew up with 5 and later supercinq literally everywhere, I felt this car captures the OG’s spirit fairly well, at least based on photos and reviews. But I’ve never seen one in the flesh, and given how smol the progenitor was, I imagine the inevitable size increase may change that.
I’m just sad that they the design is so busy with small details, and almost none of them actually seem inspired in the original. The shape is there, and it does look fine in a profile view. But the front and rear just don’t cut it for me – the aggressive fascia feels really out of place. But maybe it’s just that I love this print ad so much that I always saw a very friendly smile in the Renault 5 fascia, and that is just not there in the new one.
I’m also trying to take all of the vitriol out of my system before the Renault 4 E-Tech is out, maybe that way I will be able to stop myself from rage-commenting more gatekeeping bullshit 😉
I loved my 5 in bright orange with very comfortable seats for my 6’3” frame. I’m pissed we can’t get this in Murica, maybe time to move so I can get ‘cool’ stuff? Also does the new one come in Orange?
Not yet. I’m quite partial to the Roland Garros special edition myself.
The Turbo II color way would be hot.
If Renault are smart they’ll do color and trim special editions with this like Fiat does with the 500.
Too bad we don’t get these Rain Alt’s in America.
Also, being both a cat person and a black clothing enthusiast sure must feel like a curse.
It’s getting warmer here and Fifi is now shedding like crazy, hence the unfortunate state of my cargo trousers in that Instagram reel.
Solution: black cats!
She needed a new home and I fell in love with her the moment I saw her picture. Also Mr. Tigg was still around at the time and I thought it would be nice for him to have a girlfriend in his final months.
True, we don’t get to pick our cats so much as they pick us. Somehow we’ve ended up with matching tuxedos that are completely unrelated. One was living in my MiL’s garden for 2 weeks before we brought him home and then 6mos later another tuxedo just showed up and now they’re friends. They share 1 brain cell between the two of them and frequently misplace it. This is how we got stuck with Loki and Tubesocks.
Amazing.
RIP Mr. Tigg, you were a real G.
Wife and I had cats for over 20 years, including fostering for rescue groups. Think we fostered over 100 cats in that timeframe.
Lint rollers. Lint rollers by the case. One in each car. Pretty much one in each room. My wife and you share the same love of black clothing, so we always had a lint roller at hand.
Yeah I have lint rollers. And other tools. It’s a losing battle at the moment.
Oh, it is always a losing battle. Never ending. My big orange cat who passed away a year ago at age 20 left hair everywhere. Moved house and pulled a carpet out of storage to bring to the new house. Orange cat hair still on it, and now left in the back of my Jeep.
My cats have never been into my girlfriend’s car, but the passenger seat still has a bunch of orange hair on it thanks to me. Well, and Saffy’s incredibly fine, soft fur.
Ages ago, I worked at a place that had dark-colored chairs which always showed my orange cat’s hair that transferred. I quit, and then two or three years later, my girlfriend (later wife, but that’s another story…) went to work at the same place. She found my orange cat’s hair still clinging defiantly to the chairs.
I’m pretty sure one of every orange cat’s life goals is to spread cat hair as far and wide as possible.
I have three orange cats, and a constant question of why I even own black clothing in my head.
You had me at “ minimum legally mandated technology”. It’s so great to see a practical, well-designed EV with decent range for city use, instead of another million horsepower monster with a megawatt-hour battery pack. Even if you couldn’t charge at home and relied on the relatively expensive public chargers, you’re still gaining all the advantages of EV ownership (including much reduced maintenance cost and time) so it’s a win overall, imho.
Speed limit warnings but not blind spot warnings. No thanks.
I think the next model up has them.
Are the door handles mechanical, electric, or some mechanical and some electric?
Mechanical.
Thank you <3
It would be Tough to import across the pond and still hit that $36K us dollar amount I imagine. but if it could be sold in the US for around that amount, preferably closer to just 30K us, then I think that would be something positive. Fiat E is range limited and not cost effective enough to overcome that…except maybe in colorado and via 0 dollar leases? Too bad Plymouth was not around anymore, it would not be the worst badge engineered Plymouth Horizon replacement if some Muricans still have an issue with French Car Names or something. Just have to somehow get the press people to keep the secret.
UK VAT is 20% IIRC. That drops a USD equivalent of $36k it at a US-list pricetag of $29k.
Tax-in pricing advertising is so much better for consumers.
The cheap 500e lease is definitely the case where that car makes sense. I won’t be buying mine after the lease is up, at least not for the contracted buyout price. I am quite certain that the market price on a 2-year-old 500e isn’t going to be $19K, no matter what happens. Maybe if the dealer puts it back on the lot for, say, 11 or 12, I’d be interested.
I think that this shows what the markets got wrong on the typical buyer EV. This keeps a regular cars bits and bobs but it is an EV. No extra screens simple normal controls for the AC system. The controls for the driver are normal.
I so want this.
I’ve been saying it for a long time, but normal customers don’t want ‘space cars of the future’.
Exactly! All these “modern EVs” remind of the time when ‘space age’ designs took over. They’re cool in a way but I find myself liking the more ‘normal’ cars.
I’ve wondered a bit how much the “space car of the future” design requirement has added to the “EV Tax”.
If the car used a more basic console (some minimum of digital screenage because you DO have features/options to sort through) and just re-used parts-bin A/C, infotainment, etc: how much cost would you reasonably be taking out of that car?
They’ve always used existing components where possible. Otherwise those early EVs would have ended up even more expensive. It was the covering on top that was different.
Well they wanted an easier car to purchase sub-components as well.
The first tesla Roadster co-developed many Toyota parts, it was crazy. Then the “space car” interior was easier on start-up buyers because you only had to deal with HUDs not tooling or forms for the internal bits. That is why he avoided using the stalks for turn signals as they are surprisingly complex.
The original Model S contained a lot of Mercedes IIRC.
the OG Model S was really close to being an electrified CLS, like how the Roadster was an electrified Elise.
As in VW with the id-series. Right, we have in most respects the best interior in its class (Golf 7). Now lets make it cheap, cheap looking and all capacitive. And preferably white. And while you are at it, lets not illuminate the haptic temperature slider, nobody needs to adjust the heater during dark winter months, right? Also the classic light control switch as used in everything, including the up!, must be too expensive, so lets design a brand new haptic replacement!
VW’s problem was they had to gouge huge amounts of cost out of everything they sell because of Dieselgate and the consequent pivot to MEB for the ID cars. Remember the window switch debacle?
I don’t want to. Still, somehow Skoda was able to fit normal window switches, some heater buttons and even normal buttons in the steering wheel… of the Enyaq. Also, the base Golf 8 had the same ”normal” button steering wheel, only the ”upmarket” trims had the stupid haptic shit. Same with the Arteon. So, if they wanted, they could give ID-customers at least a normal steering wheel. But the Germans obviously know better.
Colour!
I think this is the first car I see with a baguette holder, how cute! I like this better than a Mini Cooper, way to go Renault.
Mini is a lot more expensive as well.
I feel like the baguette holder deserved some mention in the article. How can you drive a car with a dedicated baguette holder and NOT throw in a word or two about it?
It’s in the Instagram reel. I would have mentioned it, but I couldn’t actually find it as an option anywhere on the configurator or accessories website. So I asked Renault if it was something they just put in press cars, but they haven’t yet replied.
And Camus… It would be hilarious if they included Camus in every car.
It’s there in spirit at least.
That was a prop from my personal library.
Adrian got hungry. Baguette in one shot, gone in the other, and zero crumbs. Very impressive.
It was Torchinsky. You can’t leave anything edible lying around when he’s about. I had the wine with dinner last Sunday.
The kind of guy that eats a baguette the long way.
The best part is the standard green colour, instead of the usual grey.
The driving feel description sounds like the feel of driving a 90s Saab 900, maybe turbo. I love those cars that can handle a turn and feel “fast” even if they aren’t. Every drive is fun!
It has real door handles and physical buttons for the climate control! Sacré bleu!
Sacrebleu. One word, no accent. 🙂
I always liked the LeCar, and back in the day my parents were looking at one, in a very similar shade of green to this one, with the sliding sunroof. We didn’t buy it (bought a Dodge Omni instead), but I always thought it was cool.
I would buy this in a heartbeat and park it by my 4CVs.
That is a sweet looking little EV. I love the details. The little “5”s all over. Chef’s kiss.
If you @ me in the discord I have photos of a few other less fortunately stickered ones I saw in the Renault press car park….
I… really like this.