► Concept teases production Renault 4
► Electric production car comes 2025
► Baby SUV to follow revived Renault 5
The Renault 5 might be hogging the spotlight right now, but the larger and equally electric 4 crossover is waiting in the wings – and now we’ve got pictures of it testing. Just like the recently unveiled Renault 5, the 4 is based on a the 4Ever Trophy concept car, and these new shots – taken by our spy photographers – reveal just how close to the concept it’ll be.
The new pictures suggest there are relatively few changes between this prototype and the concept car; the wide wheel arches are gone, as are the pop-out door handles, which would probably have become stuck in winter anyway…
The 4 will run on the same CMF-BEV platform platform as Renault’s headline hogging hot hatch, and with just under 130bhp coming from a 50kW battery. It’s due in 2025.
What about the concept?
The 4Ever Trophy is inspired by the 4L Trophy, an annual rally that takes place in Morocco. Students driving Renault 4s deliver humanitarian aid to schools across the country.
And that, in a nutshell, showcases the capabilities of the original Renault 4. Launched in 1961, the 4 – or Quatrelle/4L as it was known in France – was the world’s first mass-produced hatchback. That made it a good load-carrier, especially with deckchair seats that could be removed. With long-travel independent suspension and front-wheel drive, the 4L proved adept at scrambling over tough terrain, making it the darling of rural France.
The 4Ever Trophy concept looks well-equipped to take on the Sahara too – assuming there are plenty of chargers for the 42kWh battery pack hidden behind that meaty sill protection.
The wheels measure 753mm across, with the 19inch alloys dwarfed by the surrounding rubber. And each wheel houses a built-in compressor, so that the driver can deflate the tyres to boost the contact patch over tough terrain. It’s a lovely conceptual touch, along with the spade to dig you out, spare tyre on the roof and bonnet bars onto which you can lash extra cargo.
Russell Bulgin on the original Renault 4
Come on then, where’s the Renault 4 in all that?
The original 4 was a two-box hatchback, defined by a lengthy snout harbouring a longitudinally mounted engine, and a boxy occupant cell beneath a bowed roofline. Wonky features included asymmetric wheelarches and a narrow, sail-shaped rear door with discordant shutlines.
Renault has lifted plenty of the original’s design details: the arcing roofline, trapezoidal rear quarterlight and upright rear hatch in profile. Also part of the update are three-ringed tail-lamps and the horizontal grille with twin round lamps – a graphic that looks like an old cassette tape (ask your parents).
Expect the concept’s silhouette and details to make it onto the production car, explains Sandeep Bhambra of Renault advanced design. ‘The car has two layers: everything that’s gun-metal silver body colour and the cabin [size] is very close to the production car’s. And everything that’s below, the black recycled material, is there for the Trophy aspect of the concept.’
The production car will have bodyside protection made from recycled plastic – just not as extreme as the Trophy’s. And the illuminated Renault badge on the nose will also make it, thanks to more relaxed EU regulation.
Purists won’t be happy that the 4 has been reincarnated as an SUV – though given the bodytype accounts for more than 40 per cent of the market and Renault needs some hit cars, you can see why the company has taken this approach.
What’s under the skin?
While the 4Ever Trophy is on a concept car platform, the production car will share the same underpinnings as the Renault 5 and upcoming Nissan Micra replacement.
‘The future Renault 4 Electric will be based on the CMF-BEV platform, leveraging the expertise of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance,’ says product manager Laure Gregoire. ‘It’s a dedicated EV platform for the B-segment with a great level of flexibility in terms of design and body type.’
The concept measures 4060mm-long, which is pretty representative of the production car – the Megane Electric is a couple of hundred millimetres longer, the 5 hatch will measure 3.92m. For comparison, the original 4 measured 3663mm in length.
Renault says the concept has a 42kWh lithium-ion battery: we’re also expecting a 52kWh pack for the production car. Despite the concept’s macho looks, the production car will be strictly front-wheel drive. The 4Ever Trophy has a 100kW (136bhp) electric motor, which is the one earmarked for production.
Anything else we should know?
Renault is showing the 4ever Trophy at the Paris motor show without an interior, partly because design has been hugely stretched rushing through a new portfolio requested by new CEO Luca de Meo. It was the boss himself who called for a revived 4, having been one of the ringleaders of the Fiat 500’s renewal in the ‘00s.
‘Renault wants to be a leader in digital life,’ says Sandeep Bhambra. ‘The Megane E-Tech Electric has one of the most amazing screens for fast, digital functionality, and we will continue in this way. The interior will have a few special things to make the link to the Renault 4 too.’
Expect plenty of MPV-style modularity too in the production five-seater – which will be in production in 2025.
A word from the design chief
Renault Group’s design chief Laurens van den Acker has previously given Car a few insights into the then-secret project. ‘[Designing a new Renault 4] is a tougher task than the Renault 5, because the 4 wasn’t exactly a nice-looking car, it was no Sophia Loren.’
The 4, Renault’s first front-wheel drive car from 1961, sought to offer similar utility to Citroën’s 2CV. With the reboot expect a small, spacious electric crossover featuring a similar grille and circular lamps to the original’s.
‘Nobody bought the 4 because it was a cool car,’ continues the designer. ‘They bought it because it was super-practical: you could transport baguettes, take the family on holiday, drive it across Africa. We need to keep the spirit of that car but add coolness, especially because electric cars aren’t cheap.’
Renault has big electrification plans, aiming to make 90 per cent of its European sales fully electric by 2030. The brand says 10 new EVs will hit the road by 2025; this 4, the MeganE and 5 EV and four more unnamed Renault models, along with three new EVs that will become the next generation of Alpines: a hot hatch version of the R5, SUV and an EV sports car.
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