New Renault 4 and extreme A110 break cover

An aggressive aero package generates 165kg of additional downforce at max speed compared to the A110 R, which was never quite as nutty as its carbon fibre wheels and seats, Sabelt harnesses and blanked off rear screen suggested it would be. Presumably the Ultime will be the head-banging lunatic of the A110 range. Production will be limited to 110 examples and while UK pricing hasn’t yet been confirmed, in France it’ll cost from €265,000. Yes, really.

At least your Renault 4 will be significantly more affordable (again, we’re still waiting on exact pricing). It revives one of the French marque’s most famous badges – the original Renault 4 is one of the great people’s cars, very much Renault’s 2CV. It arrived in 1961 and remained on sale for more than 30 years, during which time upwards of eight million were produced.

It was a compact car with bundles of interior space and charming looks. It was versatile, affordable and innovative (Renault had never built a front-wheel drive car before), making it popular with utility companies, postal services, the gendarmes, families and simple rural folk alike.

Now the Renault 4 is back and in many ways not much has changed. It shares a platform with the excellent new Renault 5 hatchback, so while it’s slightly bigger than that car, it’s still reasonably compact but with lots of space inside. Outside, meanwhile, it looks suitably quirky. Not quite as unusual as the original and while some of the references to its forebear are quite neat, like the taillights and rearmost windows, the overall design lacks the funkiness of the new 5. That car does a better job of reimagining its ancestor than this. Still, the 4 is nothing like as bland as most compact EVs.

There are two drivetrains options, both electric – the higher spec version has a 52kWh battery with a 148bhp motor and a 250-mile range, while the base model makes do with a 40kWh battery, a 118bhp motor and a range of 186 miles.

Renault is leaning hard on its heritage with its latest EVs. In one sense that’s retrograde – the original 4 and 5 only had their eyes on the future – but it does at least mean the new models have more character than most rivals. If the 4 drives as well as the 5, and should the A110 R Ultime turn out to be the firecracker it appears to be, Groupe Renault will be on something of a roll.

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