We don’t think we’ve actually mentioned it before, but because the next-gen Renault Twingo will share platforms with the next-gen smart fortwo, it’ll be rear-engined and rear-wheel drive. In a world where almost all little hatches are the complete opposite, you can appreciate why this is pretty interesting, in an almost hipster kind of way.
You recently saw the fortwo/Twingo test mule pair, wearing Toyota iQ-like bodies to confuse. But now we have the real deal – the car photographed here is the five-door Renault Twingo in production form, albeit camouflaged. A three-door version is rumoured to be on hold for now.
Previewed by the Renault Twin’Z and Twin’Run concepts, the third-gen Renault Twingo is said to pay homage to the old Renault 5 supermini in terms of design. Well, it certainly has a very interesting overall shape! We can expect three-cylinder petrol and diesel powertrains to be mostly shared between the fortwo and Twingo. A future electric version is also said to be possible. Watch out for it sometime next year.
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myvi looks better.
The Myvi doesn’t have camouflage, we’ll see how this thing will look like. The Twin’Run is actually rather good looking.
I wonder where the engine can fit in there, if it has to be in the back. Doesn’t that greatly limit the engine options?? You simply can’t get a decent sized engine in there… Of course this means having the luggage in the front… I’d be curious how much space you will have, and how the shape of that frunk is will be.
But having the engine in the back seems like a good idea, safety wise. The Tesla doesn’t have an engine in front, just a frunk, and it does very well in terms of safety cause everything can be a crumple zone, and there is no big engine that can be pushed into the passenger area. This could be a very, very safe car for its size and segment (remember, this competes in the A segment, so Picanto, Viva, i10, …).
The engine bay is under the trunk, same as in the Smart car:
http://www.giatex.com/Photos_show.asp?id=602&mnid=109
So Renault manages to make a closer successor to the Fiat 500 then fiat themselves.
Being rear engined in something like this doesn’t really impact usability as much as you think. Hatches like these don’t have much Room behind the rear seats to begin with anyway, and depend most on the fold down feature of the back seat for space. In fact having the front boot might even increase luggage space.