NEW – With a fourth generation of the Twingo inspired by the original 1992 model, the diamond firm wants to once again invent the life that goes with it.
The Twingo, in the minds of purists, there is only one, it is the first revealed at the 1992 Paris Motor Show. The others count for nothing. The second looked like a Citroën C2. As for the third, sharing its platform with the Smart Forfour to reduce costs, it has a rear-engine architecture. Since the end of the agreement with Daimler, Renault has announced that it will no longer produce an electric car in the AO category, considering the investment unprofitable. Then, Luca de Meo changed his mind. The executive director could not bring himself to no longer offer a city car measuring less than 3.80 m to motorists. To reduce design and development costs, Renault sought to join forces with another manufacturer.
Failing to have succeeded in finalizing an agreement with Volkswagen, although it was interested, the French manufacturer will ultimately lead the program alone. The car presented at the end of 2023 at an internal convention and exhibited at the Mondial de l’Automobile revives the memory of the Twingo which landed like a ray of sunshine on our planet, at the Mondial de l’Automobile in October 1992. The fact that the The diamond firm had managed to keep the secret until the end added a touch of sensationalism to this presentation. On Wednesday October 7, 1992, the Twingo known until then under the code name X-06 made the front page of Le Figaro. With its frog’s eyes and its design intelligence, this 3.43 m single-volume city car dressed in a choice of four dapper shades – mustard yellow, coral red, blue-violet and coriander green – was the event of the Parisian show. Visitors to the show only had eyes for this vehicle which embodied all the French genius and conveyed the joy of living. Young designer, Jean-Pierre Ploué was particularly inspired in designing this new and relevant concept. A contraction of Twist, Swing and Tango, the Twingo refreshed the city car’s guns. The first page of the press kit announced the color: “I am the car that we thought was impossible. But Renault is not impossible.” The advertising slogan which will accompany the launch a few months later hit the nail on the head. With the Twingo, we really wanted to invent the life that goes with it.
Impossible is definitely not in Renault’s vocabulary because, after having given up on giving a successor to the third generation produced with Daimler for economic reasons, Luca de Meo reversed his decision. There will indeed be a fourth Twingo in 2026. The unibody lines are reminiscent of the Twingo 1 but in a 3.75 m format, the designers have managed to add two rear doors. The platform is borrowed from the R4 and the R5 but as much for reasons of costs as to reduce development time, the Twingo 3 is designed around technologies from China. This will allow Renault to offer an electric city car for less than 20,000 euros during the year 2026.
