Renault to revive 'Fast and Furious cars' as it taps into retro

Renault will continue to tap into its back catalogue with plans to revive iconic "Fast and Furious cars" of the 1990s and early 2000s.

Speaking at the launch of the new Renault 5 Turbo 3E, group design chief Laurens van den Acker said he believes there is “a window of opportunity” for more desirable retro revivals, like the Renault 4 and Renault 5.

“If you wait too long, people have forgotten about them”, he said. “If you're too early, it's still not cool enough.

"Ten years ago, we did the [Alpine] A110. It was perfect, because it was a '50s, '60s kind of car, and we said 'we need to do this car now, because if we wait 10 years, they will all be gone'.

“And I think now is the time for '70s, '80s [cars], and in 10 years time we will be doing 'Fast and Furious' cars."

Giving us a flavour of the kind of cars to expect on our roads in the future, van den Acker said: “We will be doing Subarus, Hondas, Datsuns, [Volkswagen] Golf GTIs”, before explaining that the models “grow with the people."

This strategy could result in a revival of cars such as the Clio V6 or even the Sport Spider, both of which were rear-driven and could potentially be underpinned by the all-aluminum, rear-driven electric car platform under the 5 Turbo 3E.

Van den Acker explained that revivals of cars like this could be achieved thanks to the changing relationship between engineers and designers at the Renault Group.

"The times where designers and engineers were enemies are long past,” he said. “Now we work together like never before, and it's the way to go, because that makes this sort of stuff happen."

The launch of the 5 Turbo 3E is the latest in a series of retro revivals from the French firm and comes as part of van den Acker’s overall vision for its future models.

Summing it up, he said he wants to “make the best of the past and the best of the future”.