R5, Mini, Fiat 500, Beetle… With the neo-retro trend, iconic cars never die.
Renault group is inspired by the successful revival of Mini and Fiat 500 to launch its new electric car.
Will the neo-retro recipe, which was so successful with the Fiat 500 and Mini, be as effective with the R5, 4L and Twingo? In Renault, the countdown started three years ago. After his arrival at the helm of the group in July 2000, Italian Luca Di Maio gathered engineers and designers to revive the R5 in electric and techno versions. Since then, the yellow prototype of the icon of the 1970s and 1980s has been with them: in January 2021, when it presented the Renolution, the group’s turnaround plan, at the Munich Motor Show and at the Mondial in Paris. On February 26 in Geneva, Luca Di Maio will unveil the actual new battery-powered R5, which will arrive in car dealerships this summer.
The Renault boss was marketing director at Fiat when the group’s general director Sergio Marchionne, then in dire straits, decided to relaunch the Fiat 500, so dear to Italian hearts: from 1957 to 1975, the first 3.9 million…