Head of Renault Carlos Tavares has admitted it was a mistake to revive the hallowed Gordini brand back in 2010 merely as a blue-themed makeover for Renaultsport Clios and Twingos.
Wind Roadster not what Gordini should be about
He's sticking with the badge, but he's now promised to PistonHeads that cars wearing it will be properly hardcore race or rally editions with road-going versions emerging from homologation rules.
"A mistake was made," he told us. "Now what is forbidden is that we use the Gordini label on anything else other than extreme track versions or rally versions of RS [Renaultsport] cars."
This is music to our ears. Along with many of you, we weren't terribly impressed with the limited-run Gordini-badged cars and said as much back in 2011.
The problem was mainly that it didn't add any extra power or change the dynamics, while still bumping up the price to close to £20,000 for the Clio and £15,000 for the Twingo. Still fun of course and fans of the blue and white striped heritage can snag the first of the Clio 200 Gordinis from 2010 for around £10,000 while the unhappier-looking Twingo 133 Gordini is down to less than eight grand.
Gordini packages were little more than trim
For Renault the name is a close equivalent to Cooper for Mini, and the Gordini story began with a mediocre showing in Formula 1 in the 50s before gaining more success as a Renault tuner. First it was sports cars, then road cars, with stand-out transformations including the Renault 8 and the Renault 5, the latter arguably the first ever hot hatch, stealing a march on the VW Golf GTI by a year.
Tavares wouldn't tell us which will be the first Renaultsport cars to wear the new pride-injected label, but he did say the new Twingo, the new Clio and Megane is "where it is more natural". He's not saying to the Renaultsport guys, we must have Gordini versions, but he is saying: "if you do an enhanced chassis, an enhanced engine and enhanced brakes", put this label on the back. "That's the rule".
Next Gordinis will be proper performance variants
He also said Renault was planning the return of Williams-badged cars: "We are open and eager to do specific Williams versions," he told us, without actually saying
a Clio Williams
was in the works. Renault supplies F1 engines to the team so the two are technically partners again, even if the glory days for Frank's team are in the dim and distant. With the proper return of Gordini and the Renaultsport label now very much promising a fun drive, perhaps this is one performance badge Renault should retire.