Renault has confirmed it will build a new version of the 5 Turbo. Called the Renault 5 Turbo 3E, it will be an electric hatchback with two motors, rear-wheel-drive, carbon bodywork and 500 horsepower.
Expected to cost in the region of £125,000, it will likely go into production in 2026.
Christmas has come early for retro hot hatch fans, as Renault has confirmed it is bringing back the iconic 5 Turbo.
The car will be based on the new electric Renault 5 E-Tech, but instead of that car’s front-wheel-drive, 120-horsepower setup, the new 5 Turbo 3E will be a rear-wheel-drive, 500-horsepower rocketship.
We’re talking a supercar-like 0-62 mph time of 3.5 seconds, compared to 8.0 seconds for the standard Renault 5, and – as you can see from these official images – a pumped-up bodywork oozing with retro rally car cool.
There’s a chunky front bumper, massive side sills and air intakes ahead of the rear wheels, a pair of Gurney flap-style rear wings on the rear hatch, and a massive diffuser sprouting from the back bumper. And remember, this isn’t a concept; this is the production car.
We don’t know much in the way of specification for now, but Renault says the car will have a carbon body, a charge socket tucked into one of those massive air scoops, and it’ll use two electric motors, one powering each rear wheel.
That should give the 5 Turbo 3E access to clever torque vectoring, where the power and torque sent to each rear wheel can be precisely adjusted for maximum traction and agility. Or, we imagine, a lot of smokey sideways fun, should the mood take you.
Unusually, the car made its debut in the last moments of a new documentary on Prime Video, called Anatomy of a Comeback and telling the story of Renault’s recent corporate turnaround, having recovered from the brink of failure in the early 2020s. The final episode ends with a sneak peak of the 5 Turbo 3E.
Interestingly, while partner brand Alpine already makes a sporty version of the Renault 5 – the Alpine A290 – it falls to Renault itself to turn the wick up further and build the hierarchy-topping 5 Turbo 3E.
Now for the bad news. It won’t be cheap, and there won’t be many of them.
We don’t know the figures just yet, but we reckon interested buyers will be looking at £125,000 or so, and we doubt more than a few thousand will be built. For context, across two generations the original Turbo (and Turbo 2) made about 4,000 sales. In a world less enamoured with potent hot hatches, the number of Turbo 3Es built could be even lower.
You probably shouldn't expect too much in the way of range either, given the 40 and 52 kWh battery size options of the far less powerful standard 5. But who cares when it looks this good?
