Not all images were able to load for printing. Please close the print window and try again. The Surprising Duality Of The New Electric Renault & Alpine 5 Hot Hatches
EV is on the carge, with cars like the Alpine A290 and Renault 5 Turbo 3E capturing the much-loved hot-hatch spirit!
Whether you like it or not, the electrification of cars is here to stay. While some see it as the solution to our fossil-fuel challenges, personally, I am convinced it’s part of the solution but not the sole saving grace. That said, where most EVs are put on the road aimed at reducing pollution, and increasing range (still a limiting factor for most) there’s also a push towards performance and driving experience. Mind you, I’m talking about ‘sensible’ performance and fun, not the barn-storming hypercar madness of Rimac and the likes. No, I am thinking of a new breed of EVs such as the retro-cool Renault 5! In it’s simplest form it has a 70bhp electric engine, which isn’t exactly spectacular. But the original ‘Cinq’ didn’t start out as a performance car either, as it took turbocharging and some added bits of bodywork to spice things up! Today, things follow a similar path with the Alpine A290, and beyond that the wild Renault 5 Turbo 3E!
The Renault 5 legacy
The Renault 5 was first and foremost a people’s car. Designed to put the masses on the road in a safe and economical manner, and presented as the successor of the Renault 4, another compact icon from the French carmaker. Built for roughly 24 years, the Renault 5 would prove so popular it was actually still in production when its successor, the Clio, was already available! More than 9 million were built, in various configurations, but the most exciting ones still remain popular classics today.
The main part of that continued love affair for the boxy little Cinq has to do with turbocharging, something Renault pioneered in Formula 1 but also applied to the compact people-mover. Editions such as the 5 Alpine, 5 Alpine Turbo and 5 GT Turbo were praised for offering bucket-loads of fun thank to added power and bigger wheel arches, spoilers and so on. However, the homologation special 5 Turbo went well beyond that! The engine moved to the back, and power was increased to approximately 160bhp. Lightweight body panels were installed, as well as super-wide wheel arches, a more aggressive front and rear bumper and a roof spoiler.
After the first 400 homologation cars were built as the 5 Turbo, Renault introduced the 5 Turbo II. This offered a similar performance to the 5 Turbo but used more standard Renault parts to keep the price down a bit. The Renault 5 Turbo proved a formidable race and rally car, winning the 1981 Monte Carlo Rally on its first official outing. By the mid-1980s, the Renault Maxi Turbo put out 345bhp or more and would go on to win the French Supertouring Championship in 1987. Being two-wheel drive though, it was soon to be made obsolete, as it was no match for the all-wheel drive Lancias and Audis under the new Group B regulations. Still, it cemented a legacy as one of the first and best hot hatches ever made!
The Alpine A290
That legacy continues with the introduction of the all-new electric Renault 5. It captures the boxy spirit of the original perfectly, receiving a modern touch in the process. It was introduced last year with three levels of range and performance, starting at the aforementioned 70bhp, and topping out at 150bhp. In all, key elements such as the square headlights, flat roofline and slanted rear section have remained. As standard it even gets the flared wheel arches to give it some more presence on the road.
But that’s not what I’m interested in today, as there’s something even cooler coming from Renault’s performance brand, Alpine. The company was founded by Jean Rédélé and has always had close ties with Renault, thanks to its motorsport activities. Racing a Renault 4CV, the Alpine founder caught the eye of Renault and was bought by it in 1973, merging into Renault Sport a couple of years later. In 2021 though, Alpine was revived as a sub-brand to bring back the A110 and now the all-electric A290 joins the ranks. And this is where things start to get interesting again!
The Alpine A290 is based on Renault’s new 5, yet offers a bit more of everything. What Renault has done here, is to revive not only its legendary 5 but also the famous performance variants from way back then! As Alpine’s history is intertwined with that of Renault, and the sportier editions of the original 5, it makes perfect sense to do the same again now! Thus, the top-of-the-range A290 GTS offers 220bhp and 300nm of torque, with styling to emphasize its hot-hatch intentions. Up front, it gets race/rally lights for instance, with an X to mimic the taped headlights used in rallying. The air intakes in front of the rear wheels of the original 5 Turbo and 5 Turbo II have been added as well, in spirit at least. The exterior is more aggressive all around, and the interior gets a race-like touch-up as well! There’s even an Overtake button on the steering wheel for a little boost of power when needed!
With 6.4 seconds to go from zero to 100kph and a top speed of 170kph, it’s not exactly blisteringly quick. However, and I do think this is wise from Renault/Alpine, everything is focused on driving joy at sensible levels, so all of its power and performance is actually usable in the real world! To give you an even more racey feel, Alpine has even engineered a synthetic sound system for the drivetrain to invoke the spirit of an actual ICE-powered hot hatch!
The Renault 5 turbo 3E
But wait, there’s more! Although by the looks of things, the Alpine A290 might be one of the saving graces of the hot hatch in the electrified era, Renault isn’t done just yet. Next to the A290, it has promised to put something even wilder into actual production. Something with, believe it or not; 500 horsepower… Yep, the mad 5 Turbo 3E that was initially presented as a conceptual show car is getting license plates! It’s the latest chapter in the 5’s impressive legacy, and another Renault to get very excited about.
Although Renault has announced it will build only a few 5 Turbo 3Es (it remains unconfirmed how many), it’s Renault being Renault all over again; sensible for the most part, and a bit mad every once in a while! Looking at the renderings of the car, dressed in Renault Sport & Elf Oil-inspired yellow, black and white, immediately transports you back to the Group B rallying days of the Maxi Turbo. And just like the original, the engines are mounted in the back and the drive goes to the rear wheels only! It’s said to make 500 horsepower and to blast from a standstill to 100kph in about 3.5 seconds, so it’s a fair bit quicker than the run-of-the-mill 5, or even the A290!
It has a carbon fibre monocoque structure, to keep the weight down and increase rigidity as much as possible. The exterior is styled to resemble the original 5 Turbo and 5 Turbo II, complete with that aggressive front air dam, wide-as-can-be wheel arches, air intakes to allow the rear engines to breathe/cool, a massive diffuser around the back, a double-spoiler setup to keep it planted. Renault hasn’t shared any images of the interior thus far, but it should come as no surprise the cabin will undoubtedly match its performance and looks. There’s also no word on price, production numbers or when it will go on sale, but hidden in the Prime Video documentary ‘Anatomy of a Comeback’ there’s one essential message by Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo; “I don’t know when, but it will come.”
For more information, on the Alpine A290 and the Renault 5 Tubro 3E, please visit AlpineCars.com or Renault.com.
Editorial Note: The images and information portrayed and used in this article are sourced from and used with permission of Alpine Cars and Renault, unless stated otherwise.
2 responses
EVs should not appear in a section called “Petrolhead Corner”, as they obviously do not use petrol and rarely appeal to drivers. They are nothing more than mobile “white goods”. I was loaned a BMW iX 40e a while ago when my petrol 5 Series was in need of work. It was an absolute waste of time. It could not achieve even half the supposed range. As it was winter charging took far longer than expected as electricity, batteries and cold weather do not mix. It drove no differently to a Kia EV I was given on holiday as a hire car but the cost of the car was £98000! BEVs are a waste of time and the science shows that battery charging times, range etc will not get better regardless of the claims of governments and makers. There is also the issue of materials needed for the batteries which cause immeasurable human suffering and there simply is not enough available material to provide for a fraction of the vehicles required to keep economies moving. BEVs are inconvenient, short ranged, unable to compete with internal combustion engines for speed, distance, practicality or spontaneity needed for immediate usage.
Having repaired many Renaults and owning three they are problems with four wheels and not worth your attention!