The French carmaker Renault seems to be having a blast digging into the treasure trove that is its historic output. While the company also produces a lot of visually forgettable crossovers, a large part of its current portfolio has a vivid link to the past. Yes! There’s the Twingo, a 2020s rethinking of a successful 1990s monospace hatchback. Above are the R4 and the R5 E-tech, the former based on the humble 2CV competitor built from the 1960s to the 1990s and the latter the reborn Renault Le Car or Supercinq hatchback, depending on whether you liked the 1970s or 1980s Renault 5 the best. And as Renault’s concept cars show, it’s not done digging.
Between 1962 and 1976, Renault built a rear-engined family sedan called the 8. The company exported these cars to the United States, and despite being down on power, they were simply marketed as being faster than the previous cars! Yet, the R8 also provided the basis for one of Renault’s early sports sedans, the Renault 8 Gordini. The most recent concept car from Renault takes the visual identity of that late-1960s car and reinvents it for the future.
The name Gordini isn’t simply a sticker special to move cars. No, Gordini was about moving them faster. The Italian engine wizard, Amédée Gordini was originally from Bologna, but moved to France in the mid-1920s. Ten years later, the carmaker Simca was founded, and like Gordini, it was something Italian starting fresh in France, as the company was initially a French subsidiary for Fiat. Gordini, who was by then a well-known racing driver, knew how to tune Fiat’s engines, guiding Simca to 1940s racing success among Alfa Romeos, Maseratis, Talbots and even Ferraris. At the 1950 24 Hours of Le Mans, Juan Manual Fangio drove a Gordini, even if he had to retire due to mechanical trouble.
In the 1950s, he branched out on his own from under Simca, continuing to build cars that also caught Renault’s attention. By 1957, Gordini was hired to sprinkle go-faster magic on otherwise humble Renaults, which included the friendly-looking Dauphine.
Making Slow Car Fast, Faster
Under Gordini’s supervision and thanks to a new cylinder head and improved breathing, the Dauphine Gordini’s 845-cc engine received a third more power, which sounds brilliant right until you look at the horsepower bump: 36 horsepower instead of 27. The 0-100 km/h time improved by seven seconds! (From 37 seconds to just 30.)
In a fashion that’s reminiscent of playing it by ear instead of looking at notes, Gordini’s engine tuning included standing next to the operator milling parts out of metal and instructing him without any drawings. The finished part would then be given to the draftsman for creating the actual technical drawings.
Look at the original Renault 8 Gordini and guess how much power it has. Yes, that’s right! With a crossflow head and twin carbs, the Gordini division initially gave it 90 horsepower and later tuned it to a whole 100.
We’re still not talking about a huge amount of power, but consider that it came out of a 1255cc engine at its largest, this was the late ‘60s, and the car weighed little more than 1,900 lbs, and we have a real pocket rocket in our hands – and the original car had as little as 43 horsepower. The Renault 8 Gordini could accelerate past 100 mph, even if it didn’t quite break a 10-second 0- 60 mph time even with the bigger engine and close-ratio gearbox.
In rally racing, the R8 Gordini took victories at Tour de Corse and the Rallye Cote d’Ivoire on the Ivory Coast, among other places.
Renault even sold the R8 Gordini in the U.S. It is estimated that 50 examples were shipped to the States, and those had the 80-horsepower edition of the 1100cc engine. A bunch still exist, proudly wearing the blue paint and white racing stripes.
Renault likes to compare these souped-up sedans to GTI cars, from the time when hot hatches weren’t really even invented yet. Coincidentally, some of the first hot hatches were the 80-horsepower Simca 1100 TI models, but by the time those came out in 1973, Gordini wasn’t involved with Simca anymore. I hope he drove one before passing away in 1979.
Fast Forward To 2026
All the dust on this hotshot history has been blown off, as Renault presents its new EV concept car, again called the Renault 8 Gordini. It’s bigger, bolder, wider and faster than the original, but even with its flared arches and frankly enormous wheels, it resembles the original car. Instead of a four-door sedan, the 2026 concept is a two-door notchback coupe with electric power.
This time, there’s 270 horsepower, nearly a hundred more, and presumably quite a bit more weight. The beefed-up looks and boxed arches are blended with what is essentially still the old car’s face, with a wide, gaping air dam. The wheels are 19-inch in the front and 20-inch in the back.
The powertrain is likely shared with the hot version of the Renault 5 E-Tech, the Alpine A290, just with a bit more power. Alpine, as you might remember, is the other racing blue French bolide with a Renault powertrain, but it shouldn’t be confused with Gordini. Renault will also build a 536-horsepower Turbo 3E version of the R5, and the power output of that neatly matches the R8 Gordini concept – once you halve it.
The interior is all 1960s-styled concept car aesthetic, with brushed metal on a very narrow center console.
Renault provided a photo kit that’s a combination of renders and real photos, which adds a huge deal of credibility in a world that’s absolutely crammed full of hopeful petrolhead retro renders. In the glamour shots and above video, the concept car is depicted in rainy cyberpunk Japan instead of a French racing track.
The interior looks great in both renders and photographs, with suede on the steering wheel and velour on the dash.
Pleasingly, the interior features a lot of physical switches and buttons, and there’s no central touch screen to be seen. Of course, on a concept you can simply leave that out, but it’s something that a lot of enthusiasts will welcome. HVAC controls are now tactile rotary switches, ahead of push-button PRND controls, and under an Art Deco-styled figure-8.
The rear is now swept up, with blocky taillights glowing through a pixelated texture, on a surface that’s completely blank with the lights switched off. To maintain a visual connection to the original, there’s no rear spoiler on the rear deck. Instead, the spoiler is up there at the rear edge of the roof, and the diffuser presumably deals with the rest of the airflow. A large GORDINI logo is proudly affixed to the wide C-pillars.
It all looks like a school kid’s dream, which it will also remain: no production plans exist, even if some of the detailing and ethos are likely to trickle down to production versions.
It would be easy to go all cynical and say that those headlights and the owl-like brow would look brilliant on some future crossover, but let’s not go there.
In a way, the new Gordini concept also reminds us of the Nissan IDx concept car twins from 2013, the Freeflow and the Nismo. Those received rapturous applause and hopeful attention when they were unveiled, with enthusiasts pining for a production version of a modernized Datsun 510 design – again a sports sedan with late ’60s – early ’70s competition history.
Nothing happened despite Nissan initially speaking about production plans, and later Reddit posts, referenced by Autoweek, spoke about Nissan comparing the possible sales numbers to the Toyobaru twins, which didn’t sell superbly well in the 2010s, and deeming profit margins to be slimmer than the concept’s roof pillars.
But it’s all different now. Renault has the platform, Renault has the EV know-how. Renault’s even letting Nissan use its cars to tweak and sell under its own name – take a look at the R5, which became the Micra, for example. If the mad R5 Turbo 3E can be built, Renault might as well build the R8 Gordini and rebrand it five months later as the Nissan 510. Everybody wins. Heck, since Dacia even built the R8 as the 1100 in Romania, it too can use the basic concept. Just make it happen!
(Photos by Renault unless otherwise mentioned)
My first exposure to Renault was via ads for the 10 and 16s sold in the US in my early teens. I saw a few Peugeots and Citroens growing up in a Northern California college town, but never a Renault in the flesh until a work colleague had a Le Car more than a decade later.
This car is fun to look at. I half expected to see a corded mobile phone in a slightly wider center console.
I do think that it would be pleasantly wild to see a R8 Gordini – Datsun 510 twin set become real!
But I also feel like Renault has emptied the nostalgia -goodiebag already and what I’m missing most is the Renault DeZir – Alpine A110-50 concepts as there was a halo car which could be made “affordable” like the Alpine A110.
I thought it was an old Fiat at first. This is one car I think I like looks of the modern version better than the original.
This is the rare sporting car that really should have 4 doors.
I like electric cars, and I like little old sports cars, but I feel like making a modern electric version of a little old sports car just doesn’t work. This would be cooler as a standalone concept.
The Venn diagram of people calling for cars like this one, the Nissan IDx, and the Chevrolet Code 130R to be built, and the people who would actually cough up the bucks and buy one is very nearly two separate circles. That’s the problem.
They also should have built the Chevy!
It’s not a problem as long as the “buy one” circle is large enough. The “Calling for this to be build” circle doesn’t even have to exist 🙂