A few weeks before the highly anticipated reveal of its R4 transformed into a crossover, Renault surprised everyone on Wednesday, September 4, by unveiling the resurrection of its R17, its sports coupe from the 1970s. Enough to reinvigorate its brand identity and support its move upmarket.
Is a company fully lucid when it comes to revisiting its own past? In doubt, Renault’s leaders decided to take a step back and rely on external designers, not necessarily from the automotive world, to carry out these projects. It was up to them to deliver their reinterpretation of the great classics of the Diamond. This atypical collaboration began in 2021, using as a pretext the celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the Renault 4 – an event made even more important by the decision to take inspiration from this ultra-popular model, to make a crossover in 2025. It was Mathieu Lehanneur (designer of the Olympic flame) who then delivered his vision of an alabaster 4L.
The following year, Pierre Gonalons astonished the crowds with his Renault 5 adorned with frosted pink paint, diamond headlights and a marble steering wheel. A strange coronation, for the fiftieth anniversary of the little one that had since come back to life in the form of the replacement for the Renault ZOE. Last year, Sabine Marcelis revisited the Twingo, for its thirtieth anniversary.
The R17 returns in electric form
Much more unexpected is the resurrection of the Renault 17 coupe, unveiled on Wednesday, September 4 by another French designer, Ora-ïto. Because the year 2024 does not correspond to any anniversary date in the career of this model, which appeared in 1971 and was then withdrawn from the catalog in 1979. Some observers had bet on the return not of the R17 coupe, but of its successor, the Renault Fuego, produced from 1980 to 1986. Its instantly recognizable silhouette makes it a sort of icon of the 80s style, which is now in vogue.
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The modernization process lacks originality: to modernize the front, Ora-ïto replaced the four circular headlights with rectangles. Credit: Renault
The marketing director of the diamond brand, Arnaud Belloni, admits that the Fuego is “more popular” than its ancestor. The R17 was “the tr[…]
- challenges.fr
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