To celebrate company milestones, most car manufacturers build high-performance one-offs to cater to the top end of their loyal audience, but not Renault.
Instead of jamming their most powerful engine into an old chassis as Jeep did for the Moab drive earlier this year, Renault has modernised an iconic car for the 4L International — a festival that celebrates classic Renault cars.
The e-Plein Air is a concept that came from Renault Classic and Renault Design with help from Melun Rétro Passion, a business that specialises in parts for classic French vehicles.
In the official release, Renault didn't say a lot about the concept, apart from the fact that it uses the Twizy's powertrain. No specifics were revealed, but it is obvious that it closely resembles the original Plein Air.
While it does resemble the classic car, a multitude of changes have been made to modernise the car. At the front, a full plastic panel has replaced the grille, and at the rear, the passenger compartment has been replaced by the battery compartment.
There are no performance stats available for this car, but the Twizy does come with two options. We can imagine that Renault would have gone with the less-powerful Twizy 45 powertrain, which only produces 4kW and maxed out at 45km/h.
If they decided to slap the mainstream Twizy powertrain in, things would get a little sketchy. This 13kW motor can hit a top speed of 80km/h, a speed that you probably wouldn't want to do in this tiny chassis.
Renault hasn't revealed whether they are planning on selling these little cuties to the public or not, but we doubt that we're going to see them in an NZ showroom any time soon.
