Luca de Meo became known for participating in the relaunch of the Fiat 500 in 2007. Having worked with the Volkswagen Group and the Seat brand (he will launch the Cupra brand there), he is now general manager of the Renault group. Luca de Meo uses the same recipe as that of Fiat to bring up to date and by electrifying it, the Renault 5 and a new Renault 4 which combines with SUV fashion. We discovered the production version of this R4 during the last World Cup.
It’s not new that we’re trying to bring vehicles that have marked the history of a brand up to date. We remember Volkswagen’s New Beetle, a modernized version of the famous 1938 Beetle. This “new-look” Beetle launched in 1998 was very successful in the United States. Volkswagen recently used this recipe to create the ID.Buzz, a modernized and electric version of the 1948 Combi.
We take the style or simply the name
The contribution of a brand’s past does not necessarily stop at the transformation of a legendary car into a modern vehicle, Sometimes it is only the name of an old vehicle that serves as the basis for the creation of a new model. Ford happily experimented with the name Puma. It’s impossible to imagine that Ford’s current city SUV was a small coupe in 1997. The latter only remained in the American manufacturer’s range for five years while the current Puma SUV is set for a long career. Ford is doing it again today by offering the Capri SUV which takes the name of the famous coupe from the late sixties. It pushes the envelope a little further this time by taking inspiration from certain elements (optics, side windows, rear window, etc.) of the old Ford Capri.
DS a name that has become a brand
Citroën for its part did not want to revive the 2 CV. However, a concept car called Revolte dating from 2009 was able to evoke this possibility, it remained at the style study stage. Today Citroën is content to modernize its logo which takes the design of that of the creation of the brand dating from 1919. But it is worth remembering that the brand highlighted the DS name (like the legendary sedan of the 1950s) with the Citroën DS3 in 2009. Since 2014, the automobile brand DS Automobiles has lived its own life and still has difficulty winning over a large audience. Will this involve the creation of a new “DS”? It seems that the brand is seriously considering it and the latest concept car, the SM Tribute, shows that the luxury manufacturer could easily adopt the neo-retro style.
The new A110 enabled the rebirth of Alpine
This search in the past for recipes to conquer a wider audience also makes it possible to revive or relaunch brands. We can cite the good idea that BMW had to invest in the Mini brand, which had fallen into disuse, to create a wide range which gave a little more air to the English brand. Even if we are talking about a much smaller production volume, the creation of a new A110 also made it possible to revive the Dieppe brand with a sporty model displaying great agility, like the first Alpine A110. Today the small French manufacturer is counting on electric models like the A290, which could have been called R5 Alpine or on the future A390 SUV, which does not really look like an SUV (which is not really an SUV) and whose A390_β concept car received a warm welcome from the public at the Mondial. Finally, thanks to the Stellantis group we are also witnessing the relaunch of the century-old Lancia brand with the new Lancia Ypsilon.
Morgan, a timeless brand
Among all these brands which use their past to varying degrees to get back afloat, we cannot put in the same basket a manufacturer for whom the retro appearance is the trademark. It’s Morgan. Created in 1910, The Morgan Motor Company brand continues to produce vehicles which, through their lines, evoke models from the forties or fifties. But be careful, current Morgans are modern models that comply with current safety standards. The new Morgan Midsummer, presented last May, is the perfect illustration of this.
Why do manufacturers like retro?
The reasons that push certain manufacturers to return to models from the past can be numerous. First of all, it must be said that the current period is not rosy for the automobile industry. Our four-wheeled friend is often frowned upon, particularly for those who (the majority) have a combustion engine. Using a car that has already been successful and has, whether small or large, great sympathy among the public can help to better showcase the new model. This is especially true since the majority of new car buyers are often of an advanced age and have known, in the case of Renault for example, the old Renault 5 and Renault 4. They may even have owned one. The little touch of nostalgia that the name of the new vehicle has can then appeal to the future customer.
European brands have a history
Retro can also make it possible to bring up to date a name or a model which will be produced in a small number of copies. even if they are not real cars but motorized quadricycles. This is the case of Citroën, which took up the name Ami for its motorized quadricycle which has just benefited from a restyling. And the retro or neo-retro can serve “historic” manufacturers for their electric cars. Because European manufacturers must face a surge of new brands (largely Chinese) with battery-powered cars with very similar technical characteristics (or even performance). But these Chinese brands have no story to tell, because they are too recent, they cannot count on nostalgia, unlike European brands (even if a Chinese group owns them) which have the advantage of being able to draw in their history to relaunch a name or model. They would be wrong not to take advantage of it.
