The pioneering role of Renault as a plug car manufacturer is unjustified by the success story of Tesla. Renault was there in 2011 with the Fluence and a year later with the little Zoe early. Yes, Tesla was also better on all fronts. In both French people you were happy with a range of 130 kilometers. But later generations Zoe grew into adult, comfortable EVs with a range of up to 400 kilometers. Yet, now from production, De Zoe was never the hit that Tesla’s Model 3 became in the higher middle class. The soapy design did not help. And when design became more and more important to the public, they thought at Renault: what if we make nice hug cars from our EVs in the style of our most successful classics?
The newly left CEO Luca de Meo opened the retro crane wide. First came the successful electric remake of the Renault 5, which drives nicely and sells well. Now the Renault 4 follows, most charming continuation of the box -shaped family car that the brand produced from 1961 to 1994 in a circulation of more than eight million, now classic with cult status. Lovers of four euros are counted by fans for well -preserved four euros. With his practical design and comfort, he still met at the time still humble civil requirements. And now he satisfies the nostalgia that contemporary man has to swallow to wear his debilitating multitasking existence at the pace of his time.
The 4 was with the duck the designated francophilic car of my childhood. Both cars had a strong social profile in the 70s. At least they represented a free -spirited vanguard in the Netherlands. The duck was the most anti-bangular variant for those who did not want a car but had to, a betrayal as possible in the car-hating counterculture that my duck-driving parents belonged. More ambitious colleagues in their educational environment took the 4. It was more modern, with four cylinders more car than the two -cylinder Citroën, and secretly the babbling from the conversion to establishment. Renault 4 people later became a school director or educational inspector with a Peugeot 505, while the duck-drivers remained anarchist les farmers, hopelessly humiliated by the Taunus and Kadett-Riding Burgerij. Once I saw my father trying to catch up with an Opel from the back seat. The AVRO villain behind the wheel, when he saw us approaching slower than the sound, gave bullying just enough gas to catch up. “Grab him,” it hit my wild mother, but my father was too soft for revenge. “Probably an ex-student,” he sighed, and withdrew himself.
A cold winter
That humiliation will not happen to the new Renault 4 driver. It gets an engine of 120 hp with a 40 kw battery or one of 150 hp with a 52 kWh battery. Lead around old iron, 120 is fed up, but do it with the large battery. You never know how much action radius a cold winter costs in a four -person family charged four. That fits in and you couldn’t say that about the tight five. The luggage space is almost generous with 420 liters.
Furthermore, in terms of representation rate, this is a car that, if you want to go higher, you can show yourself without postmodern irony with it. In the Amsterdamse Bos we were already jumped by curious at the photo session Young Urbans. Where the new 4 really comes to stand, now that sociologically everything has become liquid, the question-with a basic price of 30 mille, which quickly rises to 40 with the larger battery and decadent options where Spartan Renault veterans from the Bom De Bom era had mercilessly judged: Harman Kardon Audio, Totalitaire. But he drives wonderfully and 350 kilometers of action radius is usually in it. Some objection is the noise. The electronic welcome soundscape when boarding is a Kia-like derailment. Why not a cool Flard Sammered Edith Piaf or Georges Brassens? Furthermore, the Harman Kardon-Stereo, in other cars, sounds a source of pleasure, in the Renault. That really has to be better. Or just leave everything away. Why not a real, bare retro-4 with a airbags and air conditioning after the bone-stripped equipment in the style of the original, so without hi-fi, Star Trek displays, LED light shows and far too thick wheels? A stylish austerity operation could make the retro-four more authentic, lighter, more economical and cheaper. But modern man only wants the lusts of his nostalgia.