The new Renault 5 Turbo 3E is an all-electric ‘mini supercar' with a proper supercar price
Renault's latest move in its reinvention – or 'Renaulution' as the company likes to call it – is another retro-futuristic model in the shape of an all-new Renault 5 Turbo.
Car fans will remember the two Renault 5 Turbos of the 1980s: wild, mid-engined rally specials that used turbocharging to give a small car incredible performance and wild body enhancements to give it sportscar poise.
That same theme continues with the new Renault 5 Turbo 3E, except that this car – as with the new Renault 5 – is all electric. That means traditional turbocharging can't apply here, so why call it turbo? 'Turbo is more of a spirit with this car,' Renault's design boss Gilles Vidal told us.
Other than the lack of an actual turbocharger, the Renault 5 Turbo 3E gets a similarly bolstered body kit as its 80s predecessors and a similar boost in power. In fact, the only bits carried over from today's standard 5 are the windscreen, door mirrors and handles, rear lights and some of the interior bits.
The body, with its huge spoilers and big wheel arches (the car is 300mm wider than a standard 5), is made from carbon fibre to keep weight down, which is an impressive (for an electric car) 1,450kg.
The car has been developed by the Renault Group's performance brand Alpine – which took over Renaultsport to produce the company's sporting models and run its Formula One team. Underneath is an all-new platform made from aluminium and featuring advanced 800V technology.
That gives numerous advantages, including fast charging for the 70kWh battery. It'll charge at speeds up to 350kW, giving a 15 to 80 per cent charge in just 15 minutes. Renault is claiming a maximum range of just under 250 miles, but not if you use it on track – as the Turbo 3E is meant to –or take advantage of the huge 533bhp and enormous claim of 4,800NM of torque.
That power is fed through two electric motors, one mounted in each of the rear wheels, making the 3E rear-wheel drive like its predecessors. It's these special motors that Renault's engineers say give it the technological boost that turbocharging did for the original cars back in the 80s. In performance terms, the 5 Turbo 3E will get from zero to 62mph in under 3.5 seconds and onto a top speed of 168mph.
Renault will let customers personalise their cars in any way they want, guided by the design team, with several options based on famous versions of the 5 Turbos of the 80s for inspiration. It's the same story with the interior personalisation, although the structure and some of the parts will be familiar to owners of the new Renault 5.
Just like the original Turbo, the same instrument binnacle is taken from the standard car, but with upgraded graphics. The digital driver display is 10.1in, while the portrait-orientated infotainment screen is 10.25in and is Google-powered with Google apps on board. This is very much a car that can be used on road as well as on track.
The Alcantara-wrapped steering wheel comes from the Alpine A290 – Alpine's hot version of the Renault 5 – with a boost button for overtaking, plus buttons to select four levels of brake regeneration and one of four driving modes.
Behind big carbon-fibre bucket seats with six-point harnesses there are no rear seats, just a large racing rollover hoop, while the clever motors in the rear wheels means there's a decent amount of boot space.
One of the highlights of the interior is a rally-car inspired vertical handbrake that – with the car in race mode – can be tugged to enable the car to drift, like its racing predecessors.
In keeping with the car's heritage, the run of 5 Turbo 3Es will be limited to 1,980 models with sales starting in the coming months and deliveries not until 2027.
Renault is being bold with pricing, too. Whispers are that the car could cost somewhere between £120,000 and £140,000, but the price could rise to as much as £200,000 with full personalisation.
For that sort of money, you could buy a very nice example of the original 5 Turbo and 5 Turbo 2, plus a current Renault 5 and an Alpine A290. This mini supercar has a full-size supercar price.
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