Old Twingo = New R4

[malcolm]

I have conclusive proof that the spiritual successor of the Renault 4 is not the Kangoo at all. It's the old Twingo! I've even figured out how they came up with the shape.

Renault 4 shell under cover:


Old Twingo - spot the difference.

 

[John Doe]

Hehe good point there.But I must say that old Twingo has something that makes him unique, just like R4

 

[RichardIRL]

That's hilarious
In earlier stages of development, the Twingo actually had R4 design cues such as obvious R4-style rear light clusters, etc

 

[angel]

A legend (actually, this the truth) says that the Mk1 R5 was conceived when a Renault designed played a little with a R4 drawing.
It is obvious the same happened with the Twingo, only that time a Renault employee played with a car cover... :-)

I have always thought the Twingo to be the modern R4 because, apart from its style, category etc. was started to be produced as long as R4 production ended. And because everyone was looking for a modern Fourgonette, they launched the Kangoo too!

 

[RichardIRL]

I think the fourgonette was replaced by the Express, in 1985. The Kangoo replaced the express.

I remember reading some French research paper about the process of designing the Twingo, which was designed as the R4 replacement. It said that there had been several projects since the seventies (as early as 1973) to replace the R4, but none had actually produced a replacement for various reasons.

I would love to get my hands on some of the designs for the replacement. I'm sure there were clay models, drawings, pictures of prototypes etc. I am sure they would be interesting from an R4 enthusiast's point of view as the designs would have resembled the R4 as late as the mid-eighties.

I wrote about it in my R4 history page:
http://www.geocities.com/richardirl/dando.html.... if the page happens to be available

And there is a picture of a Twingo design proposal on my New R4 section, that seems to have some R4esque features, unless it's my imagination. http://www.geocities.com/richardirl/newrenault44.htm


Has anybody had a look at the development histories of the BMC/leyland/austin-rover site? It's an excellent site: http://www.austin-rover.co.uk They have so many original pictures of prototypes and clay-models and design proposals.

I would love if somebody could properly document the history for the R4 in such a detailed way - including these design proposals, assuming they did in fact owe anything to the R4

 

[Pascal]

Take a look at these links:

This is about 1st Twingo designs

http://www.carbodydesign.com/archive/2007/03/21-renault-twingo-i-design-history/

and these two about the new 2cv -I put this just because we have "new" cars as Fiat 500 and Mini (2nd gen)- but not even a prototype of a modern 4L*. Note that Renault had made in the past a prototype for 4CV.

http://www.carbodydesign.com/archive/2007/05/03-citroen-2cv-preview/

http://www.carbodydesign.com/archive/2008/06/06-citroen-2cv-concept/

*http://laszlofogarasibenko.blogspot.com/search/label/Renault (??)

 

[forgonette chris]

Wiki

Hi all,

on wikipedia it says that the successor to the renault 4 is the twingo! not sure who wrote that but if it is on wiki is must be correct, just ask the aussies

Also my apologies to ian for not thanking you for the great cd. I somehow lost my password for the site, and have just ended the two months on off french holidays, (even international institutions follow french holidays). Any way back again.