Tease your hair and don your Member’s Only jacket, one of the wildest box-flared ’80s hot hatchbacks is coming back – except this time, with double the horsepower but without one of the big parts of its name. This is the production-spec Renault 5 Turbo 3E, and if you know a thing or two about the current Renault 5, you can probably guess that this thing doesn’t actually have a turbocharger.
See, the French automaker and Nissan ally is in the midst of a big electric revamp, and from a distance, the brand seems to be doing it well by making interesting, desirable entry-level EVs. The largest end of the electric lineup ends at compact crossover size, while models like a reborn Renault 5 and reborn Renault 4 promise to keep things small, cheerful, and inexpensive. Well, inexpensive for the most part. See, every brand deserves to let its engineers and designers off the leash every now and then, and that’s exactly what’s happened here.
Although the incoming Renault 5 Turbo 3E is all-electric, it still carries a certain amount of philosophy from its turbocharged, mid-engined predecessors. It takes a familiar shape and gives it a wild set of box flares, a heavily-vented nose, and a look that certainly won’t be mistaken for a standard model anytime soon. It’s even gone with a three-door body style instead of the standard car’s five-door layout. However, the really interesting part here is what lies beneath the surface.
Just like its predecessors, the Renault 5 Turbo 3E is rear-wheel-drive, but it adopts this layout in an interesting way. See, this is a dual-motor rear-wheel-drive EV, with more than 500 horsepower worth of motors exclusively driving the rear axle. Not only should this allow for torque vectoring and a virtual limited-slip differential, it leaves the front tires free to steer the car.
Wilder still, Renault claims a zero-to-62 mph time of 3.5 seconds despite the obvious traction limitations of sending a buttload of instant torque directly to the rear CV axles. What’s more, Renault claims this thing has a “carbon superstructure” which should help make it relatively light in the grand scheme of performance EVs. Light is good, because lightness benefits everything. Acceleration, braking, handling, feedback, range, you name it.
Obviously, given that the brand has zero retail presence in America, don’t expect the Renault 5 Turbo 3E to go on sale stateside. Sure, the company’s Alpine performance brand is planning on coming to America, and Alpine’s already shown off a high-performance Renault 5 variant, but any hope for an Alpine-badged variant of this particular model to make it to America is purely wishful thinking for now. Still, is it wrong to dream?
(Photo credits: Renault)
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Those rims may supplant the Holden SV rims as my fave.
https://www.streetmachine.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/2009-hsv-e-series-2-gts-768×512.jpg
Pure, unadulterated desire. Bordering on lust.
How is it a turbo if it doesn’t have one? Is this like the turbo button back on old pcs or just like BMW calling everything a coupe. We are getting to the point where words don’t actually mean anything and we just slap random words on things that don’t actually matter.
I think it was Porsche that first put a ‘Turbo’ badge on an electric car.
Uggh. What is with the Germans and doing that crap.
If it’s like the original you needn’t worry about the range, you’ll have it wrapped around a tree before the battery runs out.
Hell, I’d love a far less extreme version of this, it comes off as the love child of a Volvo C30 and you know, obviously a Renault 5. What fun!
Sweet Group B Jesus! I thought this was a Bishop mock-up(what is the proper term?) when I saw the pic. The fact that it’ll be putting down those EV horses and torque to just rear wheels makes it’s it an even better update, rather than looks great less peeling(not a typo). Yes, it has no turbo but also no lag. Looking forward to seeing test drives on backroads and gravel.
It really sucks that Renault’s aren’t sold here
Holy crap. Now that we are calling EVs “turbo” does this mean that the internet meme of that “turbo” tattoo that is actually an alternator is no longer hilariously wrong?
Was that tattoo somehow prescient. I feel my world spinning all of the sudden.
The idea of translating a cocaine-and-rally fueled 80’s box of insanity into a modern retro-futuristic EV sounds impossible by this absolutely knocks that concept out of the park. 9.9/10 only one note- Why does the diffuser look like a mid-tier amusement part caricature of the RS6 diffuser?
Hideous but in a French way so it works?
Like what I see for the most part, but can we talk about those wheels?
Can we please get this as the next gen Versa?!