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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No turbo? False advertising.
This actually looks pretty terrible especially that back bumper or whatever you want to call that.
EV’s are TRASH anyway and aren’t real cars. Gasoline forever!