Renault Twingo: Review

A cute city car with PH potential or an overhyped shopping trolley? We drive the new Twingo

Is a cheap, tiny five-door city car really the kind of machine to excite PHers? Or, to put it another way, who would be interested in a 900kg turbocharged, rear-engined, rear-wheel drive machine from the people who bought us the Clio Cup, R5 Turbo, Megane R26.R and a raft of other affordable, attainable 'hero' cars? All of you? Oh, ok...

Which, I guess, is why Editor Trent was so keen to secure a drive of the third-generation Renault Twingo. We all know what the car looks like after its show debut. Pert, chic and with just enough attitude to avoid 'cute'. But had it been sprinkled with dynamic magic?

So where am I going to put the shopping then?

The 1993 original Twingo was an A-segment trailblazer that looked superb and was brilliantly functional. Cheap, too, at around £5,500 (55,000Fr). Seemingly bigger on the inside than out and with a sliding rear bench and less demanding crash legislation, it could easily accommodate four adults and (some of) their luggage. Little wonder Renault sold two million of them and at the peak, accounted for 25 per cent of all European A-segment sales.

Difficult second album
The second iteration, from 2007, joined a more competitive environment - instead of five rivals, it now had 25, and with a more conventional approach it never quite scaled the heights of the original. It did, however, deliver us the first Renaultsport version, with 133hp and a dose of RS sparkle. It was a fun and honest little fast hatch that won a lot of friends if not huge sales.

This version is new from the ground up and has opted for a completely new approach. The rear-engined/rear-drive platform was identified early as a way to get the best package but was considered prohibitively expensive to develop until a collaboration with Daimler, who will use the modular base for both the new Smart ForFour and ForTwo models, was agreed.

Ability to fold seats into a bed about to be utilised...

With the powerplant under the boot floor a whole chunk of extra space could be freed up within the cabin. So the whole car is 100mm shorter than the outgoing Twingo but with a 120mm longer wheelbase and a full 230mm extra interior space.

Hold your horses
Two engines are on offer at launch - a normally aspirated 1.0-litre with 70hp and the one of greater interest to PH, the 0.9-litre three-cylinder turbo, delivering 90hp and 100lb ft of torque. Effectively the same unit seen elsewhere in the Renault range, a large number of components had to be re-engineered, including inclining the pistons at 49 degrees to help reduce the height of the engine by 150mm. Front suspension is MacPherson strut, with a 22mm anti-roll bar. At the rear the Twingo utilises a De Dion torsion beam.

The cabin feels light, bright and roomy. You sit a little higher than you might expect, or indeed like, but such is the preference these days and there is no doubt that it gives improved visibility in town. The tiny bonnet (beneath which lurk the battery and fluid reservoirs) is barely visible in front of you.

Has Renault got its mojo back? Here's hoping

Flexibility and practicality are obviously high priority so you get loads of useful storage bins and cubbies (around 50 litres inside the cabin) as well as a fold flat front seat. The boot gives you 219 litres and if you fold the 50/50 split rear seats down, that increases to 980 litres

Renault has incorporated plenty of 'premium' kit for the Twingo that is not too common in this market sector, parking sensors, DAB, Bluetooth, Hill Start Assist, Lane Departure Warning among it.

On the road the Twingo story has some good and some not so good. The car feels taut and well-controlled although it can crash about over speed bumps in town. Which is, of course, the environment it is really designed for. And there is a fair bit of wind noise at speed. That said, the Twingo makes a decent fist of relaxed mile-munching, and is peppy enough to keep pace on the motorway.

Hint of Renault 5 in rear design...

Back to front
Renault makes almost no reference to the car being rear-engined in the promotional literature. It certainly doesn't see it as a key selling point. Nor has it tuned the handling to make it feel rear-drive ... in fact the engineers have gone to great lengths to make it feel like a safe and sorted front driver. With some success.

The attentive might notice that the warbly, off-beat engine note seems to be coming from over their shoulder but they would be hard pushed to notice it from the way the car drives. It is competent and safe and perfectly pleasant without ever feeling that it might blow your frock up. The TCe 90 gets variable rate steering which isn't quite as feelsome as the basic setup. It just feels a little bit vague, which, given the remarkable agility and tiny 8.6m turning circle, is disappointing.

In fact, the vagueness isn't limited entirely to the steering. The throttle response is a bit mushy and the engine feels laggy low down in the rev range. The five-speed gearshift is fine but not as sweet or 'snicky' as the best. A six-speed twin clutch is in development and will join the range in the next 12 months.

Cabin sadly inspires use of words like 'funky'

It would be nice to have a rev counter fitted to help get the best from the motor - although interestingly, if you have the 'R and Go' connectivity package, you kind of can. R and Go has a universal cradle that turns your smartphone into the infotainment system. A free app enables you to then access car data, navigation, Facebook and such like. It also has a 'virtual' rev counter.

Our test car, however, had the top-of-the-range R Link touch screen which sadly doesn't have this feature, but is slick and intuitive to use with the ability to scroll and zoom as you would on a phone or tablet.

Only way is up
If all of this sounds negative it is only because our expectations - and hopes - for this car have been so high. It is a very fine little car in many ways but there is a sense of untapped potential here that is frustrating for the enthusiast. So it didn't take long for the key question to be asked in the press conference: will there be a hotter version? Ali Kassai, Renault's man in charge of small cars, was fairly unequivocal. "Look at our history. We love our fast cars... and we plan to do something different. We just don't want to talk about it now."

[Mrs Doyle]Go on, go on, go on[/Mrs Doyle]

Prices for the entry level SCe 70 Expression start at £9,495 on the road. 'Our' TCe 90 Dynamique enters the fray at a heftier £11,695 and there are plenty of options and personalisation elements. The Sport Pack styling, for example, adds £850 and a cool panoramic fabric folding sunroof the same again.

It's a cool little car, the new Twingo. It has a lot going for it in terms of style, functionality and dynamic potential. It's well worth a look if you are considering a city slicker. But is the new Twingo the fast, fun, lightweight joy we all wanted it to be? Not quite yet. Although you might want to watch this space.

RENAULT TWINGO TCe 90 DYNAMIQUE
Engine: 0.9-litre 3-cyl turbo, petrol
Transmission: 5-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power (hp): 90@5,500rpm
Torque (lb ft): 100@2,500rpm
0-62mph: 10.8 sec
Top speed: 103mph (limited)
Weight: 943kg
MPG: 65.7
CO2: 99g/km
Price: £11,695 (OTR)

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HeMightBeBanned

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