The Twingo - A Worthy Successor?
by Peter Gumbrell, 10 March 2007, updated 8 April 2009 and 20 October 2009
Back in 1993, around the time that production of the Renault 4 had finally ceased in each of its manufacturing facilities around the world, Renault introduced the Twingo model into its range. Many cited this as the replacement small car for Renault, and believed that it had enough novelty in its design to attract existing R4 users and fans. In February 2007, I had a first chance to drive one of these cars, in advance of Renault's plan to launch a new version into the UK market for the first time, later that year. So, how does it square up to the Renault 4?
For UK Renault fans at least, the Twingo has always remained something of a mystery. Renault's decision to not launch this car on the British market has cast the vehicle into a hazy cloud of myth and speculative opinion. Some see it as a novelty, because it is a small French car that doesn't make much effort to conform to the rather boring stereotypes, and the bland middle road of the car market designed to attract the very average buyer. Others perpetuate rumours that the car isn't up to a high enough quality standard, and simply has nothing to appeal to UK drivers, hence its omittance from the sales showrooms of Britain. Now, UK buyers are set to gain their first chance to put this theory to the test, when the model goes on sale later in the year, expected for some time around September 2007.
The Twingo isn't the only model that people have viewed as filling the space in Renault's range formerly occupied by the R4. Way back when the Renault 6 was launched, featuring many of the same design elements of the 4 but in a more family-friendly - and boxy - shape, it was suggested by some that this might take over as the modern successor. Sales of the Six never reached the same heights as its forerunner, but this was in part due to it really belonging in a different class of car to the austere, basic, small multi-purpose R4.
The Renault 5, launched in the early 1970s, was also assumed by many to be a model that would one day take over from the Four in the small car market. The very first versions even featured the R4's dash-mounted gear mechanism. However, despite the Five reaching record-breaking sales over its long lifetime, eclipsing even the Four¹ (which was itself no mean feat), the R5 was not such a versatile vehicle and so occupied a parallel slot in the range in conjunction with the Renault 4 for most of its lifespan.
Renault launched the Clio in 1990, but this could more easily be seen as a successor to the Renault 5 with its more sporty image, and its aim of filling gaps primarily in the popular supermini hatchback market. So, some seven years later when the Kangoo was let loose on the world, fingers pointed again at its utilitarian, versatile functionality, and there were comments abound that this was the closest Renault had ever come to emulating the R4. Although the Kangoo, like the Four, has assumed guises such as van and MPV, it is not perceivable that it could ever cross over into the small car field.
To say that the Twingo could be some kind of remodelled Renault 4 is made difficult by the fact that it was based on a Polish prototype vehicle from the early 1980s. Aside from what many perceive as quirky looks and character, and inevitably its small size, there is little else to pick out from the Twingo's design that can be matched with the many more bizarre characteristics of the R4. My own experience of driving the car offered no real clues as to where any of the Four's features could have been integrated into the car. As for the looks, I could see very little about it that could be defined as fancy or peculiar compared to any other small car of today. Perhaps, however, at the time of launch in 1993, the small car market was more conservative and the first styling of the Twingo seemed like a slight abnormality.
The version that I drove in France was a later model, and hence has probably moulded itself in later production towards a more regular vehicle. Certainly, in looking at the back of the Twingo (below), one would not for one moment think that this car held any strange delights, and it assumes the identity of a regular mini city vehicle sporting only a mildly playful and childlike font on its rear name badge. That is it! No funny windows, funny gears or other features that could quite fit the category of funny. A wholly standard, small modern car is the only summary that can be realised.
Models of the new generation Twingo planned for 2007 demonstrate a slightly more curvy body, with Renault's now famous rear end shaking its ass. This will bring its image up to date with other newer Renaults. At 3.6 metres long, Renault boast of the maximisation of cabin space achieved within. When compared to the R4, however, I could not fully appreciate such a concept on my hired Twingo as I struggled to load my one relatively small suitcase into the boot. Perhaps part of the difficulty comes from the now commonplace design of the average hatchback, where the boot floor is recessed and items are scooped out, as opposed to the flat floor of the Four which facilitates such maneouvres in only one dimension instead of two.
The name Twingo, apparently, is derived from the words 'Twist', 'Swing' and 'Tango', and denotes the 'fun and active personality' of the car. My 16 valve edition was quite a nippy thing and ideally suited to the narrow, twisty lanes on the streets around Marseille. It managed the steep grades and impossibly small gaps in the winding alleys of nearby Aubagne quite comfortably, but never in a way that outshone the Renault 4, which would have done the same only with a softer ride and suspension. Reaching 130 kilometres per hour on the autoroute was easily achieved and the car still felt comfortable in braking; this admittedly a feat I cannot reproduce so convincingly in an R4. The gears were reasonably smooth, with only a slight feeling of plasticity or clunkiness. On a few occasions, it was a little reluctant to slot into third gear, but as a token of generosity in my verdict I shall attribute this minor pitfall to my lesser driving experience of having the gearstick in my right hand than in my left.
One element of the Twingo that is (or was) pioneering, is the digital display mounted in the centre of the dash. This was a revolutionary feature at time of launch, and has now been adopted and incorporated into most other Renault models. I had come across this in a Renault Mégane Scénic hired in the UK the previous year, though that car sported many more fancy gadgets and gimmicks, including push button start, automatic lights, wipers and parking brake. The display takes some getting used to, but does hold one key benefit in that instrument gauges are clearly visible rather than being hidden behind an obtrusive steering wheel, as is the case on so many other vehicles I have to drive from week to week.
Aside from the futuristic factor of the instrument panel, there was little else to marvel at from a technological point of view, at least nothing that was obvious from looking around the inside. The remainder of the controls were standard and fairly basic, with the central console featuring simple plastic knobs and dials for adjusting such things as airflow, temperature and the radio. As a Renault 4 owner, the effectiveness of such small things is sometimes taken for granted, and it is only noticed how overly complex other cars can be when you come to drive one. It's unlikely that a modern car would ever regress to such features as holes in the door for poking your fingers through in order to release the opening mechanism. Nor does it seem likely that the easily manageable horizontal sliding windows of the Four are a feature ever to be repeated. The Twingo doesn't go in for many wonders of the modern world and sticks to regular, tried and tested methods of doing such things, but which are ultimately unremarkable.
Exceptions to this include the rear parcel shelf, which is attached to the tailgate door instead of the rear seats and can be folded up when not required. The rear seats also have a mechanism for sliding backwards and forwards, enabling a choice between increased boot space or passenger legroom. Under the bonnet, with my lack of mechanical expertise there wouldn't be much I could tell you, so I didn't even open it. Had I been driving a Clio, I might have expected it to open itself, mid-journey² (ooh, controversial)! I doubt that there would have been anything of fascination under there, and I didn't even search for the release button. So, from an engineering point of view, my thesis on the pros and cons of a current vehicle versus an old classic may not be the most reliable.
There are other design elements of the Renault 4 that could be regarded as advantageous due to their simplicity, but which seem to have been overlooked in contemporary cars, sometimes on the dubious grounds of safety. The dash-mounted gears and additional window pillars have been relegated to the leagues of redundant features because of various safety concerns, as has the steep angle of the windscreen found on the R4, although the latter has also been superseded for reasons of aerodynamics. Yet dash-mounted gears have been making a comeback in various vehicles of the twenty-first century, and more recent recommendations for pedestrian safety have concluded, from the evidence of exhaustive crash testing, that such shallow slants of modern car bonnets and windscreens are more dangerous. Therefore, a return to some of the fundamental design concepts of the Four may not be out of the question.
What this shallow screen does result in, however, is a fair degree of wasted space above the dashboard. The Twingo is in fact only a minor culprit in this regard, but the majority of other current cars include between one and three feet of pointless, useless space above and beyond the dashboard, for which most people can find no worthy function except to place gravity-defying decorations. The temptation of shoving a map or sheet of directions on this area soon demonstrates its down side when the driver realises that the reflection of these objects blinds their view of the road. The R4 made excellent use of this space by removing it almost completely. The dash on the later GTL models is so short it is almost non-existent, and yet there is plenty of space on the various shelves below for storing items. It must also not be forgotten that the R4 saloon is a four-door car, or as many enthusiasts will claim, it is the world's first true hatchback and therefore has five doors. How many small cars are built today that can boast of such numbers? The genius of the Renault 4's design comes in how it manages to pack five doors and so much potential storage space into such a narrow, mini body. Probably, that is a feat that will never be beaten.
As can be seen above, the car I hired from Marseille Airport came complete with mismatching wheels. Having booked the cheapest offering in Dollar's range, they clearly didn't think I should be concerned about such things as a missing hubcap. The photos were taken outside my hotel in Gémenos, from where I found time away from my work duties to take the vehicle for a spin around the neighbouring cities of Marseille and Aix-en-Provence. I noted a couple of younger guys making what seemed to be appreciative gestures towards the car whilst I waited at junctions, though I couldn't imagine from their mannerisms that this was anything other than inane wowing at the 16V motif on the side, or the concept of the car being a sporty hot-hatch for skinflints. Since I spotted the odd Renault 4 during my drives - they being still just about omnipresent on French roads - I wouldn't envisage that anybody was hailing my rented car to be some masterpiece of individuality.
It may even be for the best that Renault has not previously launched this car in the UK, due to the inevitable hail of mockery that would fall from the mouths of so many fashion-obsessed, British class-upping wanabees. I would expect the new version, however, to gain quite a following and to capture a significant share of the mini city car market, with its restyled shape and trim that will doubtless appeal to younger drivers seeking a cheap, sporty and zippy little hatchback. Even a basic Clio is out of the range of many car buyers and their pockets, so the base model Twingo should fill a sector of the budget car market.
So, what was my verdict having driven this car for all of three days? It might be unfair to say that the Twingo is nothing special. But the reasons for my thinking of it as anything other go against all the usual reasoning of just about anybody else on the planet (except die-hard R4 owners, perhaps). To be a fan of a Renault 4 probably infers being a breed of human being that appreciates the alternative, the anti-establishment or the simply odd. The R4 lends some individuality to its owner, despite it being so popular and ubiquitous around the world for several decades. In that last respect, it is a strange paradox. What the Renault 4 also represents today is a rejection of most of the familiar concepts of new vehicles, even though it was the R4 that inspired so many changes and features later adopted in these vehicles. So, another paradox. But in its spartan design and basic functionality, the R4 warms the souls of its owners by the sublime way in which it just works. Not only in the way it runs and its motor purrs, but in the design elements that reduce unnecessary complexity to a minimum, and prove that so much gadgetry found on modern cars is quite needless.
That is what appeals and endures in driving a Twingo, at least to me. There are few pretensions and pointless adornments, but what is there seems to work very well. The controls for the fan consist of a simple rotary dial instead of the countless confusing buttons I have to grapple with on other vehicles I come to drive. Familiarising myself with the layout of controls in such a carbuncular monstrosity as a Kia Carens (another car I was forced to hire recently) took so long that by the time I returned the oversized dollop some days later, I still hadn't learnt how to make basic adjustments. Even the wiper and indicator stalks on that model sported umpteen icons at their ends denoting features accessible by twiddling, pushing, nudging or arsing about with in some other way. In contrast, the Twingo made all these things obvious, and left my mind with more time to enjoy the drive.
The necessity for larger vehicles has rapidly become a contentious issue in the United Kingdom. In the space of just two or three years, the UK has followed the US by the actions of many millions of drivers opting to purchase ridiculously large gas-guzzling people-carriers, 4x4s and other unjustified tanks. On a visit to the States a couple of years ago, I instantly spotted the difference between the average European city car and its diet-proof counterpart in America. Upon returning there a few weeks ago, the stream of wasteful wagons passing down a typical US street looked very similar to what can now be witnessed during school run time in my home town of Brighton and Hove. I know of personal friends and colleagues who once upon a time poured scorn on such vehicles, but who have now acquired one themselves, backed up defensively by an array of weak excuses, usually centred around the needs of one small child or the vague possibility of one day needing to collect three schoolchildren, seven bags of shopping, six bags of cement and a live buffalo on the way home from work.
Such a phenomenon was not so evident during my trip to the south of France. In fact, quite the opposite. European citizens outside of the UK seem more content to travel around town in a convenient little car than to parade up and down the zig-zags outside the local grammar school in an off-road bastard-mobile. I felt happy being one of them. The Twingo created a feeling of contentment as I spun around the city streets and Provençal peaks, in a not dissimilar way to that of my R4 back at home.
Probably, if the Renault 4 had been outlawed or simply didn't exist, I would pick a car such as the Twingo to be my travelling companion, but once bitten by the charms of the Renault 4 one is forever smitten and shall find it difficult to be swayed towards driving anything else. The Twingo is simple, mildly charismatic and effective at what it does, but in a bland, ordered way of the modern world where market security dictates over ingenuity, and fashion conformity rules over freedom of expression. It is like the difference between thundering along a rickety track in The Flying Scotsman with the wind and soot rushing through your hair, and standing in the cab of the Eurostar en route to Calais. Both may provide a pleasant, enjoyable experience, but how soon will one just become a matter of routine whilst the other leaves you mildly breathless and in anticipation of your next ride? The R4 has a rustic charm and driving it puts you in touch with the real world outside, whilst the Twingo gets you from A to B satisfactorily but never imagines that it could do anything more. It is a career car that does what it's told and never bends the company rules enough to cause controversy.
Whilst Citroën, Volkswagen and Austin-Rover-MG-BMW-WhoCares have all miserably tried to recapture the 'fun and active personalities' of their original 2CV, Beetle and Mini designs respectively, by producing faceless nods to the past in retro-styled cars that do nothing to savour the originals' genius except in coarsely ripping off their shape, Renault have never tried to do the same with the Renault 4. Instead, they have looked to the future in creating completely new vehicles, sometimes challenging a few set ideas in the conservative car market by introducing new shapes, new features and concepts (arses et al). They have been more innovative than most in this regard, and the Twingo is one example of their daring to be a little different. Without that philosophy, the R4 might not have been born at all. The Twingo satisfies its current target market and the typical budget buyer just as the R4 did some forty-five years earlier, only the Renault 4 went considerably further in winning the hearts of both drivers and the public at large, in most corners of the globe. For that reason, there is just no real comparison of the two cars that can be fairly made. Except to say that the R4 is the winner. But then I would say that, wouldn't I?
¹ The Renault 5 did not eclipse the Renault 4 in terms of total sales figures. According to Wikipedia, the R4 sold over 8 million models of a single design, whilst the R5 managed a total of 5,471,709 over two generations. Some sources of info suggest the Renault 5 as being a better seller, but this would most likely be based upon the interpretation that the annual or average sales rate for the R5 was better than that for the R4 car version over the course of each of the vehicles' manufacturing lifetimes (over 6 million R4 saloon models sold for 31 years = approx. 194,000 per year; 5.5 million R5 models sold for 24 years = 229,000 per year). Thanks to Jonathan Darch for the correction.
² A seemingly widespread problem concerning Clio bonnets opening unexpectedly and blocking drivers' vision was being well documented in the media around the time of this article first going to print, including on the BBC's Watchdog television programme.
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