We could wait no longer. When we found out the latest addition to our fleet, a new Renault 5, had been built at the firm's Douai plant in France and was en route to the UK, we had to get our hands on it as soon as humanly possible. So we decided to intercept the ship.

Our 5 arrived in the UK, like thousands of cars do every day, at Royal Portbury Dock in Avonmouth near Bristol - and, helpfully for logistics, 15 minutes from my mum's house. Which made me the ideal collection driver after we learned the ship containing our car would dock very early on a Monday morning.

And while our 5 has been earmarked for Steve Cropley, I'd yet to try one so happily volunteered.

Once you clear security and enter the port, it is a car spotter's paradise akin to Kensington in London. Except that while Kensington is wall-to-wall supercars, everywhere you look within the port are random unregistered new cars, many SUVs from Chinese firms you've barely heard of.

Renault has a dedicated processing facility run by BCA and it's surrounded by a vast car park that on my arrival was largely empty. It wouldn't be that way for long, because a massive transporter had just arrived and several minibuses of stevedores were en route to drive cars off it.

Time is money in the port business, especially because the tidal nature of Royal Portbury Dock meant that if the ship wasn't unloaded (of cars arriving in the UK) and then loaded (with cars and vans being exported) in time for the high tide, it might be stuck there for another day. So I was informed I couldn't mess around.

By the time I walked through the ship's massive cargo door, several of the vast transporter's six decks had been cleared, but on the down ramp ahead of me were a row of 5s. And ours was right at the front of it.

Our 5 was simple to spec: we went for top-level Iconic trim, which has pretty much all the kit you would want, such as climate control, colour-changing interior lights, synthetic leather seats and a heated steering wheel. Selecting the Comfort Range model gave us the 201bhp motor and largest, 52kWh (usable) battery, all for £28,995. We also added Pop Yellow paint for £1200, because it looks fantastic.

While I'd identified our car already, the stevedores who empty car transporters simply jump out of a minibus that's driven onto the deck and get in the first car in the line. On this day, the massive ship had nearly 1600 cars on board, with plenty of 5s and Dacia Springs, and a decent number of Volvo EX90s - although it was hard to recognise the Volvos since they were covered in an abundance of protective wrap.

Every available bit of room is used. Cars are bolted into place and parked 10cm bumper to bumper, which is just enough space to keep them apart in rough seas. The rows are split by 30cm on one side but there's a slightly bigger gap on the other for a driver to squeeze in.

Each driver does a four-point check on the car before they drive it off the ship so any obvious damage can be addressed and then they drive it to the relevant car firm's facility, jump back in a minibus and get another car.

Our 5 seemed in good order, although it was hard to check out much of the interior due to the various protective wraps over some of the dash and seats. That and the fact that I had to squeeze in without taking off my protective hard hat.

Even nervously driving one off a ship, with heavy-duty protective shoes blunting my throttle modulation, my early impressions of the 5's driving dynamics were positive. Our road testers had raved about its fun and lively handling, and I could feel that as I powered down the ramp and took a sharp turn onto the docks. Although I then had to slow sharply because a big forklift was passing.

It was a short trip to the Renault collection facility, so I was excited to get some more miles in on the way to Cropley's house. Except that it turns out you can't actually drive a car off a ship and onto the road.

Instead, all the vehicles are parked up in Renault's compound and the BCA team conduct a multi-point inspection, before the cars are moved to a preparation facility to be cleaned, and where accessories such as car mats and boot liners are added per the order. If required, the vehicle can be taken into a workshop – some of the 5s have decals that need adding - and then they're ready to be collected and delivered to dealerships.

Still, the wait was worth it when I picked up the 5 a short time later. It really does have a pleasing pep and is genuinely enjoyable. It had me wondering if I could tell Cropley the 5 was stuck in an import pound and keep the keys.

Alas, he's just as excited as me to try it out, so I've reluctantly handed it on. Meanwhile, I'm dreaming of a new life as a stevedore…

By James Attwood

Update 2

There's been so much hoopla (justified) about the new Renault 5 that it's almost a relief to start using our Iconic version as a car, as opposed to a rolling exhibit and a constant conversation piece.

Mind you, part of that exhibit thing is our own fault. We're the ones who specified this pretty little car in Pop Yellow - the yellowest metallic yellow you'll ever see, made all the more vivid by its contrast with a black roof.

You'll note I've called the 5 a little car: opinions vary on that. Being an EV, it's taller than your old-school Fiesta or Clio because there's a great big battery beneath. And with the mirrors extended it's just over 2.0m wide, which makes it about an inch wider than the current petrol Clio.

But in the dimension that matters most to size when you're driving, it's only 3922mm long, a dimension that actually undercuts many ICE superminis and makes a nice change from the general direction of EV progress, which is towards structures that are both much bigger and much heavier.

Even the 5's kerb weight of 1450kg, admittedly shocking against an original Clio's 935kg, isn't so bad when you consider that well over one-third of that mass comprises battery cells. It still seems fair to call this a little car.

The driving position plays along. We've all become used to the idea that battery height under the car means you tend to sit on, not in, a smallish EV, yet because of the 5's seat design and fascia mounting height, you get the feeling you're in a sporty, bum-on-floor kind of car, a feeling that endures even if you do 200 miles, straight off the bat.

Which you can. At this time of the year, our bigger-motor, bigger-battery 5 delivers 230-240 miles of range pretty faithfully in give-and-take conditions on the open road. At a 70mph motorway cruise, it would be 170 miles, still okay in this era of improving charging infrastructure. 

When you start to drive, the sporty impression stays. The 5 rides on big (18in) wheels and tyres and has them at each corner, Mini-style, so there's that genuine roller-skate feel to the handling. The car grips and points very well and hardly rolls. You're best to use a wet road to investigate the on-limit handling, which is nice, safe, mild understeer. Nobody's going to habitually hang the tail in one of these. 

One surprise is the refinement. The ride may be towards the firmer side of supple but it is impressively quiet over bumps and generates only well-controlled road noise. That goes with low wind noise, too, and the impressive overall economy so far of 4.6mpkWh, even if you use the very decent acceleration regularly for joining fast-flowing traffic on motorways and A-roads. 

All of this leaves you with the impression of a city car that's actually capable and comfortable out of town. My most surprising impression so far? Maturity. This new car feels durable, well built and ready for a long life. Although the 5 EV's ancient ancestors had many virtues, these were not among them.

Update 3

If you're lucky enough to have a Renault 5 at present, prepare for even more attention than you're getting already. The government has decided to play into the willing hands of Europe's car makers by subsidising the purchase costs of EVs just like mine, which seems to have upped the interest of onlookers and passers-by even more.

Of all the cars you could drive to catch other folks' eyes at present, Bentley or Lamborghini included, a Pop Yellow 5 creates the most interest. Maybe a passing Ferrari F40 would excite some people more, but the 5 attracts all classes. I'm becoming quite used to returning to my car in the street, getting it started, then pausing because somebody has cantered across the road and tapped on the window, wanting to know more.

Maybe it won't last. After all, 5.5 million original 5s were sold even before the Supercinq took over in 1985. The new baby EVs will surely become an awfully common sight, especially if backed by Westminster. But for now, it's everyone's darling. I feel quite sorry for anyone driving a Peugeot e-208, which has been on the market for years now

The odometer has been spinning merrily since we picked up our 5 on the dockside some time ago. It's for all the right reasons: the 5 is genuinely compact (shorter than the Renault Clio), it's fun to drive (I keep pitching it into corners knowing those fat 185/55 Continentals will look after me) and because the dependable range, at least during this part of the year, is well into the 230-mile area. 

Remember how so-called experts and zealots were queueing up, not so long ago, to tell us that range anxiety was outmoded? Well, they were wrong. This Renault has just enough range for my needs and my comfort provided that I don't hurry (a 65-70mph cruise is quite enough), but I can still get rather close to its limits if I press on. Roll on the 5 with a 500-mile range.

When digital interfaces have quite a lot of options, like this one does, it takes me a while to decide my preferences. There are three main driving modes, accessible via an inviting steering wheel button (might be nice if it just read 'Modes' rather than 'Multi-sense'), named Comfort, Sport and Eco, plus a configurable mode called Perso that lets you set your own combination of response, steering weight and so on. My choice is Sport everything, except I prefer the light steering setting that isn't too light and just feels a bit more delicate - like the car itself.

The finest thing, now spread over most Renaults, is a little button at the right-hand fascia extremity with a car symbol surrounded by a circle. It opens a setting called My Safety Perso that allows you to choose which of the many ADAS features you like and loathe.

Like everyone I know, my twin hates are the bong that tells you you're allegedly doing 40mph in a 40mph zone (when the more accurate speed recorder on Waze knows it's only 36-37mph) and the lane departure warning and/or lane keeping assistance.

Every time I experience one of the latter, I go straight to my handy mind-picture I have of the mule-headed jobsworth who has insisted on my car having this stuff, regardless of my own abilities and preferences. I'm convinced that many more cars will have been driven off roads while their drivers scrabble to disable ADAS features than were ever saved by them.

The 5's economy has been excellent. My previous claimed average of 4.6mpkWh would be better quoted at 4.8mpkWh, at least at this time of year, and that's without adopting anything more than elementary energy-saving driving techniques. Driving smoothly in town, you're hard-pressed to use significant amounts of energy at all.

Faults? There probably are some, but I can't be bothered to look.

Update 4

I dropped into my local BMW-Mini dealership the other day, and the dealer principal was keen to take a close look at my Renault 5, given that it's currently providing pretty solid competition for his electric Mini Cooper hatch.

In fact, he marshalled his Mini staff for a viewing of their best rival product (as I sipped a flat white in one of this emporium's welcoming coffee bars).

The upshot? They were all impressed. The 5 was undoubtedly an appealing and thoroughly modern product, they reckoned, although pretty tight on boot space and rear room. Like the Cooper. It also lacked, they felt, the last few per cent of materials quality that has always been impressive in Minis. But they could definitely see why the 5 is selling so well.

The same continues to go for me. When pressed recently to name an EV-era fun car, the 5 was the best option I could think of, given the handling balance, the bum-near-floor driving position (particularly important to me in a car I'm going to chuck about a bit), the accurate steering with adjustable effort and decently high levels of grip.

One caveat concerning this last point: it's so long since I've driven the Renault on a wet road that I've almost forgotten what happens when you give it plenty in a roundabout. But I'm sure we will be in for a drenching autumn, so I should find out quickly enough.

In the enduring dry, it continues to be a pleasure to jump into and go, not least because the controls are so simple and convenient. Every single day I praise Renault's My Safety Perso function, which allows me to swerve two infuriating 5 habits that would otherwise have to be reset every time: wildly over-zealous lane keeping assistance and a bong that boxes your ears if you stray even 1mph over the limit.

The fact that said bonging starts a couple of MPH lower than the actual legislated speed (because speedo error is built in) is even more irritating. My Safety Perso, available via a fascia switch, lets you configure the entire suite of ADAS as you want (I keep most working).

Compared with rivals, it's bliss. You get into the 5 and the proximity of the key card in your pocket tells the car you're present so the dashboard comes alive. I like that. You thumb the power switch, tap the My Safety Perso switch twice, select forward or reverse with the transmission stalk and you're away.

This is not to suggest that I go about thwarting speed limits. The 5 keeps you well informed about those, and I like the way it glides at low speeds in near silence. It becomes an interesting driving test to anticipate how much forward motion you will need for any upcoming obstacle (an intersection, say) and glide up to it with just the right amount of regeneration and no foolish waste of energy.

Because I enjoy both the sense and execution of this, the result has been efficiency of 5.1mpkWh. The overall average for the entire 7900-odd miles we have covered so far has risen again to an exemplary 4.8mpkWh. The range readout often shows 250 miles (warm weather, don't forget) and I've come to rely on 240 miles, which is impressive.

Here I go again, full of nothing but praise for the 5, and now we are out of space. I had intended to summarise its (few) faults, but that will have to wait until next time.

Update 5

Entering a hill climb in an electric supermini isn’t the most sensible thing I’ve ever done, but the Watergate Bay Sprint in Cornwall seemed like the ideal event to test my Renault 5 long-termer’s sporting credentials. 

I mean, how well could an entry-level baby EV do in a Motorsport UK-approved event against a cohort of conventional cars, many of them developed over years specifically for hill climbing? 

Read the full feature

Update 6

It's not quite curtains for our Renault 5 yet, but its departure from our long-term fleet is fast approaching. It's therefore definitely time we started talking about what worked and why, rather than conveying too much further excitement about its arrival (even if privately I still have such feelings).

Two things continue to stand out about this rule-changing Renault, and I suspect they would still be highlights in a year's time, were it to remain on our fleet. One is the car's sheer, enduring star quality; the other is the maturity of its development, especially given that it was rushed into production from a standing start.

The story of the 5's rapid journey from an idea to the showroom, having been spotted as a static concept in the design studio by the arriving (and now departed) Renault Group chief Luca de Meo in July 2020, will always be part of Renault folklore. Given this, the car's well-honed, all-round functionality continues to surprise; I've found no major flaws even after six months' no-nonsense daily use.

The 5's star quality never even looks like waning. Even though it has been on sale in the UK for nearly a year and it has spent most of those months near the top of the EV charts, people still react with remarkable enthusiasm to its arrival anywhere, even at events like Goodwood or Bicester Heritage meetings, which are stuffed with high-tone vehicles. You get used to smiling people rushing at you in shopping centre car parks, begging a chance to peep into the cabin, and you're always the star at charging stations.

Our particular 5's ultra-bright yellow metallic paint job undoubtedly helps the attention, but as anyone who has ever owned a yellow car knows, the underlying model needs a funk, a shape to justify such a bright set of clothes.

Were I specifying one of these for my own use, I would choose an Ultimate model (as that trim gets you Iconic Yellow upholstery) with Pop Yellow paint and the Diamond Black roof option in a heartbeat, although I could probably be persuaded into the Arctic White as well, so long as it came with that same black roof with red edging.

It's hard to see a case for the lower-powered (118bhp, rather than 148bhp) motor, since it always comes with the smaller (40kWh against 52kWh) Urban Range battery. The punchier motor gives the 5 very impressive step-off acceleration and the bigger Comfort Range battery gives you a reliable range of 190-200 miles at this time of the year, whereas the small one, even driving a less powerful motor, is only good for 150-160 miles. Spend the extra would be my advice.

Having talked economy, I have to confess that I've encountered a wide disparity in the miles-per-kilowatt-hour figures while driving our car. In gentle town running or consistent low rural speeds, you can drive it over 5.0mpkWh, a very impressive figure. When tooling about on A- and B-roads, you can keep it well into the 4.3-4.5 range, again a good performance.

But there are also times when it sticks stubbornly in the mid-threes, and I can't seem to do much about it. I'm one of those fetishists who chase good figures, so overall I've managed to keep our average economy in the early fours. A less obsessed driver would return 3.6 and be happy.

If you consistently do 2000 miles a month in any car, you pretty soon form an accurate idea of the maturity and durability of its controls and switchgear, and this is where, in my book, the 5 really deserves plaudits. It's easy to operate, there's zero evidence of flimsiness (a 5 flaw from the olden days) and when you get the car valeted (which is what our photographers like) it comes up showroom-fresh.

That overriding impression of durability informs my whole 12,600-mile life with our 5. From what I now know, these cars are going to last a long time, both as leading EV market offerings and, once sold, as individuals.

 

Final report

In the end, the burning question my family and I had to answer about the tasty little Renault 5 EV we've been driving for the past few months was whether or not to buy it once its time on Autocar's long-term test fleet was up.

This might sound self-indulgent, given that wider questions still surround this attention-grabbing supermini, which made its debut at the Geneva motor show two years ago and officially arrived in the UK last February. But my excuse is that if we were potential buyers, we would need the same answers to burning questions like anyone else.

Our buy-or-not decision is predicated on three things. First, while kicking around at Autocar for longer than most, I've developed the oddball habit of falling in love with various long-termers and buying them for personal use (Ford Ka, Citroën Berlingo, Dacia Duster, Alpine A110, Ford Ranger Raptor).

Second, I really hit it off with the 5 from its first moment in my clutches, more than 15,000 miles ago, to the extent that I didn't even get around to listing a fault or foible on these pages until well into my stewardship of the car. Third, our household fleet includes a 70,000-mile, 69-plate Mini Cooper S that's starting to cost us money, and its never-very-good, six-year-old infotainment system feels really prehistoric. The 5 looks like its ideal replacement and could lead us into owning our first EV.

Everyone knows by now about the launch success of the electric 5. When it started to appear in public, its outstanding cuteness truly stopped the traffic, aided by standout colour options.

This was Renault's modern interpretation of design cues that began with the original R5 of 1972 and was amplified in the second-generation 'Supercinq' of 1984 - and it worked more effectively than any other 'retro-modern' car of recent times. In fact, the scheme has worked so spectacularly that you have to feel sorry for the likes of Fiat, Peugeot and Citroën. 

This trio was already well established at making small EVs in Europe, but because this come-lately 5 was such an eye-catcher, many people viewed it as the class pioneer. If you need proof that terrific styling sells cars, here's the perfect modern example.

After all these months, I can report that the appeal of the styling has not declined one jot. I've lost count of the number of times, as I've returned to the car, some interested party wearing a tentative grin has crossed the road and tapped on my window to enquire: "What's it like?". 

My answer is in the mileage. There are five other cars in my life at home and a passing parade of them at work, yet I've still amassed 15,566 miles in the 5 during its time with us, simply because it has been so good at all kinds of motoring. I even ran it without being disgraced in a 2025 motorsport event, the Watergate Bay Sprint, held on closed public roads just north of Newquay in Cornwall.

What makes it so good? I won't deny that it's fun to drive an eye-catching car, especially a model whose notoriety isn't associated with high-priced exclusivity. Onlookers enjoy it as much as you.

Next comes the size: at 3.9m long, it's compact enough to turn tightly in cities and fit neatly into supermarket car parks, a capability that feeds your subconscious view of it as 'handy' so you reach for it every time. Actually, it's not the narrowest car going, and the rear room isn't the best in class either, but you only notice that later.

It's refined and rides very well. The powertrain offers the usual EV smoothness and near-silence, but the 5 surprises by being quiet over bumps and generating relatively little road noise for a small car running reasonably big 195/55 R18 tyres. It is taut but never hard-riding and the generous rubber makes it feels chuckable, despite its considerable kerb weight (for cars like this one with the more powerful 148bhp motor and larger 52kWh battery) of just under 1.5 tonnes. Performance is such that it rarely occurs to you to wish for more. 

You're greatly helped by the tendency of clutchless EVs, whose generous maximum torque is available from standstill, to leave the mark more quickly than ICE cars with the same nominal output. In fact, this feeling of zip and the well-chosen suspension rates make life hard for the 5's stablemate, the Alpine A290, whose extra poke and grip come at the cost of a rougher ride and a shorter range.

Our bigger-battery, higher-power 5 sits in the sweet spot of the entire range- made sweeter by the fact that it now attracts the full £3750 Electric Car Grant offered by the government. What about range? Renault quotes a WLTP figure of 248 miles, but if you drive with normal verve it's closer to 200. That seems okay.

So did we buy the 5 after 15,800 miles? We didn't, even though we probably should have. I believe it would work perfectly at our place, and we even rate the local Renault dealer.

But one member of our household still feels spooked by a shortish range, barely half of the mileage promised when we fill our Mini. Yet it's clear that the day of our change to a home EV is approaching, and when we reach it, a 5 will probably be our choice.

Renault 5 Comfort Range Iconic

Prices: List price new £28,995 List price now £25,945 (Iconic Five+, after Electric Car Grant) Price as tested £30,195

Options: Pop Yellow paint with Diamond Black roof £1200

Tech highlights: 0-62mph 7.9sec Top speed 93mph Engine Synchronous motor Max power 148bhp Max torque 181lb ft Gearbox 1-spd reduction gear, FWD Boot 277-959 litres Wheels 6.5Jx18in, alloy Tyres 195/55 R18, Continental EcoContact 6Q R Kerb weight 1449kg

Service and running costs: Contract hire rate £255 pcm CO₂ Og/km Service costs None Other costs None Fuel costs £1455 Running costs including fuel £1455 Cost per mile 9 pence Faults None

It wasn't the most sensible or logical thing I've ever done, entering my Renault 5 long-termer in the Watergate Bay Sprint, a Cornish motorsport event on a closed public road between Newquay and Watergate Bay, about a month ago.

I mean, how well could a brand-new, bog-standard baby EV be expected to do in a proper, Motorsport UK-approved competitive event against 70-odd conventional cars, many of them developed over years for this very purpose?

Three reasons. First, this is the big-battery, 148bhp version. Its acceleration off the mark is much more impressive than that of a similar-power petrol car, because its generous maximum torque of 181lb ft is available from step-off.

As well as being invaluable in the traffic, such grunt is ideal for rapid start-line departures and for slingshotting you off start lines and out of slow corners and chicanes (of which Watergate Bay's 930-yard course has three).

Second, I reckoned the Renault's small size would help in a September sprint when the weather might be iffy (it was). And third, I figured the Pop Yellow colour would look great in photos (it did).

Debacles aren't often fun, but this event was one of the exceptions. The weather - rain and high winds - combined to make our clifftop perch about as exposed as it could be.

Extreme wet, mud on the track and an early competitor's accident (including a very big oil spill) combined to limit our number of runs to three (one practice, two timed) for the day, instead of the half dozen we had hoped for. Yet the car was terrific.

It ran a best time of 39 seconds - nothing special but no disgrace. It felt safe and quick, with positive steering and total wet-road stability. Even with rivers of water running down the middle of the track, I felt it could easily have used more power.

In our little EV class, I was easily beaten into third by a pair of Tesla Model 3 Performance entries, but I beat a game local entrant in a Nissan Leaf. On a dry track with a more capable driver than me, the 5 could have sliced five seconds off my best time, and a 5-based Alpine A290 a couple more, but the main thing was that I had fun.

Perhaps our little group's biggest win was that of all the clifftop tents competitors were using to protect their gear from the awful weather, ours was the very last in the paddock to blow away...

The whole exploit didn't prove much else, except that it's perfectly easy to drive a 5 from London to Cornwall with one stop (the same number you would choose in a petrol car), relying on a range of 180 miles if you cruise at 65-70mph. You will get around 4.0mpkWh if you do, which is impressive.

My 5 has now passed 11,000 miles in a few months, because it brilliantly combines fun, practicality, park-anywhere compactness and sprightly performance in town or outside. Even though the 5 has been on sale in the UK for more than nine months and is becoming a reasonably common sight, people still stop me in the street after I've just parked to enquire what it's really like.

It's a long time since I've had a mainstream car with universal eye appeal. It must be galling for those who sell or own the Citroën ë-C3 or the Peugeot e-208 (two clear 5 competitors) to see how imperceptibly their cars slip into the mainstream traffic.

In fact, if you're looking for proof that really great styling can make a massive difference to car appeal and consequent sales, the success of the 5 must surely be the best example for many years.

Despite a pre-dawn flight to the UK, Laurens van den Acker, the hugely accomplished Renault Group design director, bounds out of the Rafale with enthusiasm. “This is like Christmas for me,” he beams.

Today’s festivities go back several months, when van den Acker mentioned that, despite being good friends with Marek Reichman, Aston Martin’s chief creative officer, he had never driven one of Gaydon’s finest. Such opportunities don’t usually arise when you work for a different car firm – but Autocar can make things happen.

So while van den Acker and Reichman reunite outside Aston’s HQ, parked close by are a mighty V12 Vanquish and a vivid yellow Renault 5. After swapping keys, the two design directors head out into the Warwickshire countryside, eventually to meet us at Caffeine & Machine.

The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Autocar: How was the drive?

Marek Reichman: I tried to show Laurens some of the local historical points, and they’re very nice roads. These are our test bed: they’re typically British B-roads, with uneven cambers, potholes, undulations and tight corners. They’re exciting. Our car was developed for these roads, so you get the full sensation.

AC: Laurens, how did you find it?

Laurens van den Acker: To drive this car how it should be driven and where it should be driven, I’m a boy whose dream has come true. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced this type of acceleration before. I was laughing out loud. You feel the adrenaline pumping, and the car just invites you to go faster. I thought I would be intimidated by the Vanquish, but when you really push it, it wants you to come play.

AC: Marek, how did you find the Renault 5?

MR: It was really good. I haven’t driven one before but I know the roads, which helped with a beast like the Vanquish behind me. In terms of its response and excitement, it’s great. If you see an opportunity, you can take it. I even managed a bit of wheel screech at one point.

AC: Do you get the chance to drive cars from other manufacturers much?

MR: We try demonstration vehicles from direct competitors, but very rarely outside of our category, so you take the chances when you can. When travelling I always book an entry-level hire car just to get the base experience.

LA: We’ll drive what we call the ‘golden car’ – the car we have as a benchmark – and lots of competitors from the class. We’re not in Aston’s league, although with Alpine it’s becoming more interesting, and we’re starting to drive cars from premium and sports car brands.

AC: Even when it’s in a different segment, are there things you learn when driving another car?

MR: Completely. In the R5 I spent a lot of my time checking out screen integration, the gap and flush of material change, materiality sections, detail changes and so on. You enjoy driving, but you spend your time looking at material finishes. But we’re fanatical, aren’t we? We go a little bit crazy. I’m looking for anything.

LA: The level of car you can get for the money now is incredible. Our idea was to get dream cars on the road. When [former Renault CEO] Luca de Meo came [in 2021], he didn’t want a difference between the promises we make and the cars we deliver. With the R5 we’ve never done a car where we’ve tried to be so close to the prototype. We really went for the last 5%. It’s like in Formula 1: those last few per cent have 50% of the impact. With car design there are now more possibilities than ever: this is a golden age for car design.

MR: Absolutely. It’s the inflection point in powertrain technologies, and there’s competition coming from all angles. There are more Chinese manufacturers and, in our world, more bespoke manufacturers coming into the ultra-luxury space. So it is a golden age, because there’s more competition and more desire to win.

LA: You need that desire to drive you.

MR: Any designer or engineer is very competitive. I’ve played football with this man: I have a scar he gave me in a match, so I know how competitive he is. And part of the design profession is being competitive. It drives us.

AC: How long have you known each other? You were at Ford around the same time 20 years ago.

MR: We’ve known each other from before Ford. I started at BMW Designworks [in California]. And Laurens was…

LA: ...at [design consultancy] SHR. I left Audi in 1993 when J Mays [then Audi’s head of design] started SHR in California. BMW Designworks was up the road. We looked up our friends in the car design business and we all ended up living in the same area. We became friends very fast.

MR: We kept moving as a group as well. I eventually moved much closer to the beach in Laguna Beach. It was learning to surf and beach barbecues, basically.

LA: California was a good time. Then we ended up moving to Detroit. I was at Ford, and Marek joined through Lincoln. I saw this army coming in with Gerry McGovern, and Marek and David Woodhouse in his slipstream, to revive Lincoln from the ground up. Later, Marek was moved to Aston Martin, and I became design chief at Mazda.

AC: Marek, you’ve ended up at a luxury firm, and Laurens, you’ve led mainstream brands. Do designers have a natural pull towards certain market segments?

MR: You go where the opportunity is, but it’s got to be the right brand. My route started with Land Rover when BMW bought it, which back then was an incredibly utilitarian product – very different from the brand it is today. But there are very few chief designer jobs in this industry.

LA: You don’t have the luxury to say ‘no, I’ll let this one pass and wait for the next’.

MR: These jobs don’t come up very often. Another friend of ours, Adrian van Hooydonk, has been at BMW for 30-plus years. If you look around automotive at the leaders in design, they’ve mostly been incumbent for some time.

AC: Someone like Miles [Nürnberger, the long-time Aston Martin designer who just returned to the firm after a year at Dacia] shows you can move between luxury and mainstream.

MR: We play tennis with Miles, batting him between us.

LA: Or ping-pong, maybe. I thought it was an inspired choice when Miles came for his brief honeymoon at Dacia. There’s quite a bit of similarity between the roles: you fight the same battles, just at the opposite end of the spectrum. High volume, low volume, high price, low price, the rules of design are the same. People say ‘Dacia must be tough because you have little money’. But I have friends at luxury brands who complain about not having enough money.

MR: With design, part of the remit is innovation. You have a budget, so how do you define it? You can spend it on a chunk of carbonfibre for a part, or a tool to make lots of plastic things. The shape is what we try to define; the materiality of that shape is set by your budget. With the Renault 5 you have volume.

LA: Which means we can do things you couldn’t do.

MR: You’ve got to find innovation. You’ve got to have a core component – which the consumer doesn’t see and which is based across everything. 

LA: Today, the level of design that you find in both premium and popular cars is nearly equal. It used to be that if you made a B-segment hatchback you’d see compromises everywhere. But look at the Renault 5: it’s parked next to an Aston Martin Vanquish and you can still appreciate it. Obviously we don’t have the power, but on a design level every aspect is treated with as much love.

AC: As a designer, do you learn from other cars on the road, regardless of class?

LA: For us, Aston Martin is a benchmark in design: it’s the whole brand experience. We’re learning a lot from Aston in how they position the car, how they advertise, how they use branding.

MR: You asked if we get inspiration from other cars: it’s everything, whether it’s fashion, product design, architecture, furniture – you’re constantly looking and absorbing. I spend my time saying ‘I knew you could do that’. If someone has told me you can’t do something and then I see someone else has done it, I will be such a pain in the ass.

AC: Do you recognise the work of other designers when you look at a new car?

LA: I hope so. You want a signature. You want it to be on-brand, and you want to see the imprint of the designer. There needs to be a ‘before’ and ‘after’ [a specific designer]. Obviously a car needs to reflect brand values, but you’re not going to design something you dislike, so you have a personal expression.

MR: With that personal expression we’re also defining the brand’s DNA as it changes over time. Like with your children, it’s a chain of DNA but they’re all different. So our role is to evolve that DNA through time and technology. As Laurens says, hopefully you see it. To me, Renault, Alpine and Dacia now feel more – and I can’t express the word in any other way – designed. They are more considered, there are more consequent things in those products than before. 

LA: Popular cars need to be flexible. We now have future icons and legendary icons, and they can live together. The brand is broad enough.

AC: Laurens, have you ever fancied trying your hand at designing ultra-luxury cars?

LA: Of course. Marek designs the cars that made us all start. If you looked at my bedroom walls as a kid I had Aston Martins and Ferraris and Lamborghinis and Pininfarinas on them. These are the cars that got us into design. Then you evolve, and now I enjoy doing an R5 or a Clio as much as I would do a sports car, or even a van.

MR: Or a Twizy…

LA: Yeah, a Twizy. We have four brands, and I love the diversity. But give us a sports car package and this would come naturally, it would be a dream. Luckily, with Alpine we have a chance.

AC: And the Renault 5 can hold its own: it has been parked next to a Vanquish and people have been taking photos of it.

MR: It has a fan base. Something like an R5 embodies an emotional reaction to some prior existence when you may have been five years old and sat in one, or you saw one being rallied.

LA: There is a reservoir of sympathy for these types of cars. But when you do one, you need to do it right. When people ask me what’s difficult about doing a new Renault 5, it’s that people know when it’s right and they know when it’s wrong. If we do a new Mégane, there are no rules. With a Renault 5 or an Aston Martin, people will tell you if it’s not right. If we do an R5 and we miss it, we’re screwed.

AC: Since Aston does relatively few cars, Marek, do you feel that pressure every time?

MR: Absolutely. In terms of our total sales volume it’s very few, but in terms of product I’m on car number 55 or 56 in 20 years, and with what’s in the pipeline now I’ll easily be at 64. That’s a lot of cars, especially because some are one-offs or limited runs.

AC: Would you like to design a mainstream model, though?

MR: I love the art of design, so the idea of doing something like a Renault 5 or a Twizy really appeals. You get to solve a very different problem.

AC: Laurens, is there anything you’ve ever wanted to ask Marek?

LA: To borrow his cars more often? No, from my perspective Marek lives the dream life. But he has seen Aston Martin go through all kinds of upheavals, and designers incarnate the brand, so we always have to put up a good face even in the darkest of times. So my question would be: how did you keep up the motivation?

MR: Do I have to answer that?

AC: Of course…

MR: It goes back to passion and pride. We become designers for a brand, and we have to imbue the brand. Sometimes my budget has been slashed and it’s mayhem in my head, but I’ve got to walk into a room of customers or journalists and represent the brand. But creatives are very fortunate – we can compartmentalise. It might be crap today, but designers live in the future.

LA: Whenever we’ve had a crisis, I tell the executive team the crisis is already done for me, because I’m working years in advance. For me there’s no chip crisis and trade barriers are long gone: I’m designing cars for when life is good.

MR: Right, what would I like to ask Laurens? 

AC: At the moment my question, and he probably can’t answer it, is what is life going to be like without Luca de Meo?

LA: That’s a delicate question. The best answer I can give is that, for me, Luca is the Jürgen Klopp of the car industry. He brought in a lot of passion and a lot of success. He really lit a fire in the belly of everyone who’s a fan of Liverpool, and then he left. But look at where Liverpool is now. He left behind a good team, management and structure. So I hope we can repeat his success.

AC: Finally, we have to resolve this: what exactly happened with this football clash you two had?

LA: It was when we were both at Ford. He was a firm defender and I was a committed attacker…

MR: I tried to stop him. I was on the left side of the goal and he comes barging in, and I swear he used his head. I went off bleeding, and now I have a scar, because I was determined not to move and he was determined to just go by me.

LA: It was deserved, fully deserved. He should have been sent off… 

Renault is poised to launch a range-topping performance version of the Megane E-Tech next year as part of a radical styling makeover that will reposition the EV as a hot hatch.

The move is motivated by a desire to revive the Megane E-Tech’s appeal and reverse a sharp fall in sales of the car over the past 18 months.

Speaking at the Munich motor show, Renault brand CEO Fabrice Cambolive confirmed the Megane E-Tech will be repositioned as “a hot hatch or a hot car”, adding: “That’s the direction we want to go in.”

He also told reporters that Renault is exploring the viability of a new performance model and will show the “first proposals” within 12 months.

While he declined to give further details, the two are expected to be linked.

The brand’s last true dedicated sporting model was the fourth-generation Megane RS hot hatch, which went out of production in 2023 with the 296bhp Ultime run-out special.

Renault has begun experimenting with sportier models again recently, bringing to market the exclusive, £140,000 5 Turbo 3E – a 533bhp hyper-hatch designed to show what a Renault performance EV is capable of.

The new top-rung Megane E-Tech model isn’t expected to receive such a lofty power output, but a more feasible option is apparent from its Ampr Medium platform-mates.

Of those, the new Alpine A390’s bespoke 464bhp tri-motor powertrain isn’t likely to be transferred to the Megane E-Tech, but the Nissan Ariya Nismo’s 429bhp dual-motor set-up could be in play. The current Megane E-Tech is offered exclusively with a single electric motor and a topend output of 215bhp.

It is not yet known if the new range-topping Megane E-Tech will take the Renaultsport name.

Cambolive hinted that the Renault Group could decide to continue using the Alpine brand exclusively for dedicated sports cars. 

Previously, in February, the Renault Group’s then CEO, Luca de Meo, described Renaultsport to Autocar as being “in the fridge” and said that while “everything sporty would be building on Alpine”, that “doesn’t mean that sometimes this thing wouldn’t be revived”.

On the viability of the Megane E-Tech rangetopper potentially spawning a series of new performance cars, Cambolive said “we have to find the right balance” between cost and demand before any approval is given.

To that end, Renault Clio product line manager Emmanuel de Jesus Pequeno recently told Autocar that a hot version of the new sixth-generation supermini is not currently on the cards. This is because of the “compromise” between the level of investment required to transform it into a hot hatch and the level of expected demand.

A refresh of the Megane E-Tech has been a big focus for Renault, said bosses. The model was launched in 2022 as one of Renault’s first new-age electric cars.

Following its initial success, the Megane E-Tech has subsequently been challenged by a growing number of newer rivals, some of which are delivering more for less than the hatch’s £32,495 asking price. As a result, sales have fallen sharply – down 67% (to 10,082) in Europe for the fi rst half of 2025 compared with the year before.

Speaking about the Megane E-Tech’s 2026 refresh, Cambolive said it will get a larger battery. This is likely to be the 91kWh pack used in the Ariya Nismo and Scenic. In the hot Nissan, the battery offers up to 310 miles of range.

Autocar understands the facelift will bring a new grille, new daytime-running lights and a lower, wider stance, although Renault Group design boss Laurens van den Acker would not be drawn into specifics.

On the need to refresh the hatch, van den Acker admitted: “We need to sell more of it.” He added: “If you put a new battery in the car, which is very expensive, and you don’t change the car, then it’s really hard to seduce people to pay more for it.

“So we needed to justify the change underneath the skin by showing something on the skin. And then we thought that what the world was missing was kind of a hot-looking EV. And so we thought we had nothing to lose, so we’ll just push that.”

It’s a curious thing with hot hatches – they’re much lusted after when they’re the cars of the moment and the best of their breed.

But when that moment has gone and the next superheated hot hatch arrives, they fade as fast as a tropical sun. They get used up until suddenly, there are hardly any left. And fewer still that you’d give drive-space to. 

The X85 generation RenaultSport Clio has yet to reach the decimation phase, but its X65 predecessor has despite this car being the hot hatch to have in its day. You’ll occasionally find a crisp Clio 182 with low-ish miles. But these are the exception - most have been thrashed, trashed or crashed.

But there signs that its successor may not quite go the same way. A tempting trip through the classifieds reveals several that have clearly been pampered, come with all the right bits and have a heap of life left in them. So perhaps the X85 Clio RenaultSport is going to buck the hot hatch trend, allowing a decent number of coveted and cared-for examples to survive. High prices potentially make it too expensive to track-day these machines to oblivion.

That said, a track is where you best experience the superb handling of this car, especially if it’s equipped with the coveted Cup option. Though if you’re shopping for an X85, you need to know that there were two ways to acquire this confection. In its most extreme form, the Cup option was not only about recalibrating the springs and dampers for still greater agility, but also about paring weight, specifically 20kgs-worth.

To make that gain, Renault deleted the air conditioning, keyless entry and curtain airbags, and installed the lower-rent dashboard of the most basic Renault Clio, complete with steering column adjustable for rake only. You could order the air conditioning and curtain airbags as options, but not the higher-grade dash, reach adjustment or keyless entry.

You paid £1000 less for this version – a refreshing contrast to Porsche, which will charge you (loads) more for an RS with less, but better still was that the Cup chassis could be ordered with standard car. In this form the Clio weighed only 1.6% more, making this the optimal choice. But if you’re shopping, you need to be sure of what you’re getting.

And what was so special about the Cup suspension? It wasn’t as if the standard car shortchanged in the gripping, turning, swerving and stopping departments. But those reworked dampers and springs tightened the Renault’s body control, deepened its athleticism and sharpened your impression of the tyres’ intimacies with the road below. And all without ruining the ride. The steering could still have weighted up more informatively when you got some boldness on in a bend, but the Clio Renaultsport Cup was unquestionably top of the pile, not least because of the lift-off, tuck-in liberties you could take with this wonderfully game chassis, and a revvy engine to goad you on.

It’s still hard to beat even now. One major reason for that is that its paddle-shift only, five-door successor doesn’t quite continue the magic, despite Dieppe’s effortful fettlings. But the main reason is that the X85 Clio RenaultSport remains one of the best-handling front-drive cars of all time. With luck, that will mean plenty of survivors.