No one seems to be having more fun with their semi-recent past at the moment than Renault. Obviously there’s the revived Renault 5 E-Tech (not to mention the associated Alpine version) but also wild-looking concepts the firm need not have built at all - like the R5 Turbo 3E drift car, which harked back to the Turbo 2 partly by being wild. Now we can add the R17 electric restomod x Ora Ïto to that list - a ‘sculptural show car’ that seeks to reinterpret the ’70s-era Renault 17.
Whether or not the front-engined, front-drive Renault 17 deserves to be harked back to is mostly beside the point - the point is that, partly thanks to the input of French designer Ora Ïto, the carbon-bodied, battery-powered, Galactic Brown concept looks kind of brilliant. Maybe even very brilliant if you’re prepared to take a journey down memory lane to when vaguely edgy coupes were considered de rigueur. And even if the ‘ultra-contemporary’ take on a 50-year-old coupe isn’t for you, we can probably all agree that it adds about three feet to the new Ford Capri’s pre-dug grave.
Naturally, that’s precisely the kind of reaction Renault is looking for in a car that has ‘restomod’ in the name, and that it isn’t pretending it’s going to build. But, credit where it’s due - the team has stuck to its brief. ‘We have teleported Renault 17 into the future while respecting its more distinctive elements,” noted Ïto. “I wanted to wrap [the car] in a second skin to glorify it and bring it up to date using my own style." And he means that quite literally: the car is said to share much with the original template, including the doors and underbody, even if it has been made wider and sprung significantly lower.
Of course, there are limits. The original was powered by a fairly modest four-cylinder petrol engine; the restomod version gets a 270hp ‘never-before-seen’ electric motor mounted on the rear axle, and, while Renault gives no details of associated battery capacity, it suggests the car is capable of a 250-mile range. We hardly need the engineering team to confirm that it would be dramatically quicker than the old R17 in the real world, but with a reported kerbweight of around 1,400kg, you can be sure that it would be.
If Renault were going to build it, which it isn’t - regardless of its recent success with reviving long-dormant past glories. We know it isn’t because the market for coupes is about as lively as a disco on the Titanic. But that doesn’t stop us totally digging the effort (again, part of the point); especially when it comes to the interior, with its ‘streamlined dashboard, new fabrics, revived door panels and redesigned cushions’. Granted, having access to ‘chine brown satin in very fine Merino wool, subtly combined with a light, thick, luxuriant wool bouclé as soft as a cloud’ gives you a leg up - but the seats still look dynamite.
Or at least they do from where we’re sitting. Visitors to next month’s Paris motor show will be able to find out for themselves as the R17 electric restomod x Ora Ïto is due to appear on the Renault stand. There’s a fair chance its appearance will be overshadowed by people jostling for a better look at the still-to-be-seen Renault 4 (itself a blast from the past, albeit one coming to a showroom near you). But maybe not. And if enough sentimental Parisians begin to form a crowd in front of the car that still looks very much like a fastback from the ’70s, maybe its maker will look more kindly on two-door coupes in the future. We live in hope.
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