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Renault to revive classic 4L and 5 city cars as electric vehicles – report

Renault looks set to revive two classic city cars of its past with retro styling and all-electric power.


According to news agency Reuters, new Renault CEO Luca de Meo will unveil plans later this week (14 January 2021) to reboot two 1960s to 1990s-era city cars of the brand's past as electric vehicles, in a bid to lean on the brand's French roots and drive sales in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Leading the charge will be a zero-emissions reboot of the Renault 4L, introduced in the early 1960s as a 'people's car' to rival the then-new Mini and ageing Citroen 2CV.

 

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Above: The 1960s-era Renault 4L.

It will reportedly be joined by a modernised, electric version of the Renault 5 (or its second-generation successor, the Supercinq), the light-sized predecessor to the modern Clio city car sold from the early 1970s to the mid-1990s.

No details of the models' powertrains and specifications were detailed in the Reuters report, however it's probable the reborn all-electric models will compete in the same segments as their classic counterparts' modern, petrol- and diesel-powered equivalents.

That would see the electric 4L occupying the 'micro' segment alongside the modern Renault Twingo and new Fiat 500, with the larger plug-in Renault 5 expected to compete in the 'light' segment against the contemporary Renault Clio, all-electric Renault Zoe and the Peugeot e-208.

Underpinning the models would likely a smaller variant of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance's electric-only CMF-EV platform, which currently underpins the larger Nissan Ariya mid-size SUV and Renault Megane eVision concept car.

 

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Above: The first-generation, 1970s-era Renault 5, in TL guise.

Reuters also claims Thursday's announcement – dubbed 'Renaulution', given its significance to the company's future success – will see the unveiling of three new all-electric models for Renault's sports-car brand, Alpine, which currently sells just one model, the turbo-petrol A110 two-seater.

The news agency's report aligns with an array of rumours that surfaced throughout 2020, indicating Alpine will undergo rapid expansion under de Meo's leadership of the master Renault brand, introducing an array of performance electric vehicles and rebranding Renault Sport's Formula One team (and potentially its road cars) under the Alpine brand.

 

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Alex Misoyannis

Alex Misoyannis has been writing about cars since 2017, when he started his own website, Redline. He contributed for Drive in 2018, before joining CarAdvice in 2019, becoming a regular contributing journalist within the news team in 2020. Cars have played a central role throughout Alex’s life, from flicking through car magazines at a young age, to growing up around performance vehicles in a car-loving family.

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