You already know that we love the new Renault 5 – it’s our affordable electric car of the year. Well, now there’s another new Renault 5, although it’s not so affordable… 

Meet the new Renault 5 Turbo 3E; a 500bhp, rear-wheel drive, all-electric supercar that takes inspiration from the original 1980 Renault 5 Turbo and the later Turbo 2. The French manufacturer did show an even more extreme concept car leading up to this, at the 2022 Paris motor show, but nobody expected it to go into production. Yet, here we are, with Renault promising that it will make 1980 examples of the Renault 5 Turbo 3E. The car is being revealed in a Netflix documentary titled ‘Anatomy of a Comeback’ that follows Renault’s turnaround from near-collapse pre-2020, to today’s healthy brand.

Pricing hasn’t been confirmed yet, but when Electrifying got the chance to speak to company bosses at an early reveal of the Turbo 3E for Car of the Year jurors, they hinted that it won’t be cheap. “The original Renault 5 cost 33,000 francs, while the 5 Turbo cost 115,000 francs,” said Bruno Vanel, VP of Renault Product Performance, “so you’ll have to wait and see what this one will cost.” 

Quite a lot, we reckon. In fact, we wouldn’t be surprised if the Turbo 3E ends up costing well over £150,000, given that it is a one-off collector’s car built with bespoke composite body parts. The two in-wheel electric motors at the back make it what Sandeep Bhampra, Renault’s Chief Designer Advance Design, describes as “a drift champion. And the dimensions are key to the design, too. The body is over 2.0-metres wide, so it’s supercar width. It also has the performance to back that up.” 

No kidding! With a sub 3.5-second 0-62mph time courtesy of the 500bhp streaming to its rear wheels, the Renault 5 Turbo 3E is supercar-quick, and has the low, wide-bodied wow factor to go with it. There are hints of the new Renault 5 in the front headlight design, but otherwise the huge air vents – one of which, at the rear of the car, hides the charging socket – enormous rear diffuser and jutting wheelarches speak more of Pikes Peak than they do of an affordable hatchback. 

We don’t yet know what battery will be used in the Renault 5 Turbo 3E, but we do know that Renault is working on having cell-to-body battery tech in its vehicles within the next few years, which sees the cells being placed directly into the car’s body for better weight- and structural rigidity; rather like we see with BYD’s electric cars, today. For an aspirational collector’s car like this, it seems more than likely that Renault will roll out its latest, lightest and most energy-dense batteries. The company remains tight-lipped on details, though, so we’ll just have to wait and see.