Renault has been on a design based roll recently, with the highly antipated Renault 5 now on sale, the Renault Twingo coming soon as well as the Renault 4 on its way. However, Renault has decided to go all out on a brand new, limited run, crazy powerful version of the Renault 5. The new Renault 5 Turbo 3E will go into production in 2027 and only 1,980 will be produced - a nice little nod to the year when the very first Renault 5 Turbo was launched. Every car will be hand built in France and is expected to cost over £100,000.

Like the standard Renault 5 that is on sale now, this new hyper performance model will be fully electric only and actually shares very little with the standard model. In fact, only the rear light clusters, windscreen and door mirrors are carried over - everything else is bespoke.

Battery and Performance

Renault has packed a 800V system in the Turbo 3E, using a 70kWh battery and it'll be able to charge at 350kW. This is a lot faster than the standard model and 15-80% only takes 15 minutes.

Renault has done a lot of engineering to make the Turbo 3E exceptionally powerful, so it has two rear mounted motors, which actually sit in the wheels - meaning the rear boot space is quite large, thanks to the space saved. These motors make 533bhp together and 4,800Nm of torque. 0-60mph is handled in less than 3.5 seconds, with a top speed of 168mph.

Design

The design of the Turbo 3E is obviously very retro inspired, paying a close resemblance to the iconic Renault 5 Turbo from the 1980s. There is a completely custom body with two doors and is entirely made out of carbon fibre t keep the weight down. Also, for a car of this power and battery size, it doesn't weigh that much, coming in at 1,450kg.

It has large 20-inch alloy wheels with Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres for increased grip. The whole car isn't very long, but it is quite wide. The standard R5 is 3.92 metres long and 1.77 metres wide, whereas the Turbo 3E is 4.08 metres long and 2.03 metres wide.

Interior

The interior is very geared towards performance. There are just two carbon-fibre bucket seats with six-point harnesses, as well as a roll cage in the back. The most prominent thing about the interior is the vertical handbrake, a nod to rally cars and should male drifting very easy.

The steering wheel is from the Alpine A290 and there is the same infotainment system from the R5, which is 10.1-inches and has support for native Google apps, but a nice nod to the heritage is the custom retro dials for the driver's display.

Price and availability

The new Renault 5 Turbo 3E will enter production in 2027 and will be hand built in France. Just 1,980 units will be produced, which is a nice little nod to the year when the very first Renault 5 Turbo was launched. Each version of the car can be customised to whatever the customer wants, and Renault’s team of designers can be utilised to make each car unique to each customer.

Renault will also have a wide choice of colours available and liveries.

Prices will likely be at over £100,000, but Renault lead designed Gilles Vidal said at the launch that for the target market this is aimed at, this amount of money isn't exactly a lot.