Renault Twingo, page #20

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Pope Francis receives a vintage Renault 4 to serve as Vatican wheels

Pope Francis has a new car. It's not bulletproof, it isn't made by Mercedes-Benz and it doesn't require that we attach the inglorious suffix "-mobile" to it. In fact, the Pope's new ride is a 1984 Renault 4 that fully lives up to the pontiff's recent urging that we drive "humble" vehicles.
Not that the Pope has shipped in the Renault to hammer home his point. The Renault was reportedly a gift from priest Fr. Renzo Zocca, who put some 190,000 miles on the odometer while tending to the needs of his flock in the northern Italian city of (fair) Verona. It was the car's noble role in working to help poor Italian Catholics that caused Zocca to offer it to Pope Francis in a letter, as the story goes.
Built and sold from the early 1960s thru the 1990s, the 4 may not be very well known in America, but Europeans in general (and the French in particular) are likely to understand just how humble a vehicle this is. More than eight million Renault 4s were built, sold in markets from Australia to South America, all utilizing engines that hovered around the 1.0-liter mark in terms of displacement.

Renault kills the Wind

We wouldn't blame you if you never heard of it, but the Renault Wind was, in areas it was available, one of the more intriguing affordable convertibles on the market. It was based on the Twingo, but shared a couple of vital attributes with the Ferrari 575 Superamerica. One, of course, was the innovative Leonardo Fioravanti-designed flip-top roof. The other was its limited production numbers. But while Ferrari restricted production of the Maranello-based roadster, Renault had apparently hoped more people would buy the Wind. Having fallen short at that, the French automaker has reportedly killed off the quirky little roadster.
This after less than three years of production, which could be down (in part at least) to the minuscule four-cylinder engines it offered. Renault tried to give it a more sporty appearance with the Gordini edition, but despite the racing stripes, it didn't offer anything more in the performance department.
It will be interesting to see if Renault manages a more enticing convertible based on the next Twingo, whose rear-engined platform it's developing in tandem with Smart - which as we all know had a short-lived, high-on-bark/low-on-bite roadster of its own. Here's hoping the next generation has a bit more to offer.

2014 Renault M'egane gets a nose job [w/video]

The 2014 Renualt Mégane is on display at the Frankfurt Motor Show, flaunting its nose job as the latest vehicle in Renault's lineup updated to reflect new brand styling, which can be seen in cars such as the Clio and Twingo. All versions of the Mégane are receiving the new, bigger grille with gloss-black vent slats and a bigger Renault logo: Hatch (pictured), Sport Tourer, Coupé, Renaultsport and GT models. Pretty soon all Renaults will adopt similar front-end styling cues.
The Hatch, Sport Tourer and Coupé will share front bumpers, hoods and new elliptical headlights with daytime running lights that stretch around the side of the car, though Renault says they'll maintain unique identities. The Renaultsport and GT versions will get new headlights with gloss-black "eyelids," according to a previous press release, but it's not mentioned if they will share any other parts.
The Mégane also is now available with a dual-clutch automatic transmission if paired with the TCe 130 petrol engine, which Renault says has been tuned to have faster throttle response by upgrading engine and transmission control software.

Renault Initiale Paris Concept furthers the French MPV luxury dream [w/video]

When it comes to European auto shows, your intrepid Autoblog coverage staff is always keen to see what the French have to offer. That's because Gallic companies let their designers off the leash more often than the rest of their global counterparts, freeing them to produce the sort of moonshot, future-think concept cars that we used to associate with the US and Japan.
Even when their showcars are seemingly more rational and production-minded - as is the case with the Renault Initiale Paris concept shown here - they still employ fantastical details. In the case of this Frankfurt Motor Show debut, said details include things like an aluminum and plexiglass roof that proudly displays a map of Paris (complete with the city's districts, roads, and the River Seine), color-shifting paint and and headlamps with eyelash-like blinking mechanisms. Did we mention the 32-speaker Bose audio system? This Renault concept may further the brand's obsession with selling the idea of a luxury car wrapped in a minivan body (see also: Vel Satis, Avantime), but it's really said to presage the next-generation Espace MPV, while showcasing where the company's new high-line Initiale brand may go.
The automaker hasn't provided much in the way of powertrain details, other than to say the engine for this people mover is a modest dCi 130 - Renault-speak for a 1.6-liter twin-turbo diesel four - with 295 pound-feet of torque paired to a shift-by-wire dual-clutch gearbox. That powertrain might just be the most down-to-earth aspect of this whole concept, and we wouldn't be surprised to see it survive intact on the production Espace. Let's hope the claimed 250-kilogram weight loss versus to the current production Grand Scenic - around 550 pounds - also makes it to the production model.

Renault Megane gets family facelift for Frankfurt

Automotive designers tread a thin line in making their lineup look consistent. Get it right and there'll be a familiar appearance to the whole range; get it wrong and all the cars will look the same and you won't be able to tell the difference between them. Now Renault has updated one of its core model lines in an effort to put it on the right side of that line.
Renault has tweaked the nose on its full Megane range, including the three-door hatch, five-door hatch and wagon as well as the Renaultsport and GT variants. The changes revolve principally around the new larger grille dominating the fascias of Renault's latest models. All three bodystyles get the same front bumper and hood as well as new elliptical headlights, while the sportier versions get their own look with gloss black headlight surrounds.
The updated models will debut in Frankfurt this week, where we'll be able to see how the changes come across in person and against the backdrop of the rest of the Renault lineup.

Renault teases 'premium' Frankfurt concept

Nobody does 'premium' like Renault - and we do mean nobody. The French automaker has thrown all manner of projectiles at Europe's luxury car market dartboard over the years, including the left-field Vel Satis and Avantime 'coupe' of the 2000s - models that looked more like MPVs than traditional premium cars. Today, Renault still offers its po-faced Latitude sedan, but the badge-engineered Korean Samsung SM5 hasn't caught on - even among Francophiles. In fact, the whole idea of French luxury is almost nonexistent in today's marketplace, with the Citroën C6 having recently gone out of production.
But judging by this teaser photo for next week's Frankfurt Motor Show, Renault may not be willing to cede the upper end of the market just yet. Along with the tightly cropped image of the headlamp above, Renault has issued a statement saying it will unveil a "new concept car which embodies its vision of Premium motoring."
There's no further details to go on, other than a statement saying this is the "latest opus in Renault Design's lifecycle-based series of concept cars," all of which will be displayed at the show. That grouping of six showcars, we might add, was designed under Laurens van den Acker's leadership, with such notables as the stunning 2010 DeZir coupe and scissor-doored Captur concept of 2011. Whatever this unnamed concept turns out to be, we're guessing it'll be unmissable.

Carlos Tavares steps down as Renault COO

Renault has long been lead by two guys named Carlos. One is Carlos Ghosn, who presides as chairman and CEO not only over Renault, but also Nissan. That makes Ghosn one of the busiest guys in the business, and leaves Renault's day-to-day to the other Carlos - Carlos Tavares.
Or at least he did, until Tavares stepped down from his post as Chief Operating Officer, which he's held since May 2011. Renault only states that Tavares is leaving "in order to pursue other personal projects," but by personal, we assume they mean professional.
Tavares, as you may recall, made headlines recently by stating that he'd like to move to Michigan to run either General Motors or Ford. Which seemed a little odd at the time, considering that he'd be an outsider, but then Sergio Marchionne has been doing a pretty decent job of running Chrysler.

Watch and hear Renault's awesome Twin'Run driven in anger

We're a little tardy in getting to this, but the engine notes will make up for the delay. When Renault revealed the Twin'Run concept at the Monaco Formula One Grand Prix earlier this Summer, it didn't reveal much of the engine note. This was an appalling shame, since the not-road-legal Renault 5 revival had a mid-mounted, race-tuned Nissan V6 that could soar to a practically unsilenced 7,000 rpm.
A few members of the auto journo cabal have corrected that, Top Gear being one of them by including the Twin'Run in its Speed Week festivities. Calling it "deafening, smelly, brilliant," the verdict of Sam Phillip was that it "makes every car on Top Gear's Speed Week... feel as woolly and distant as a tumble-dried sheep." Them's pointed words when "every other car" includes metal like the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Black Series.
You'll can check out Top Gear's run around the Charade Circuit in France below. We've also included a longer clip of the Twin'Run doing some dynamic testing (worth it for the 360-degree-stunt alone), and an in-depth piece from Autoweek Holland.

Renault COO Tavares dreams of running GM or Ford

What do you do if you're in a job with no upward mobility? Admittedly, most of us just stick it out while secretly hoping our boss is sacked for all those paperclips he's been swiping, netting us a nice, shiny promotion. Then again, most of us aren't the number two at Renault, like Carlos Tavares.
Tavares is the right-hand man to Renault CEO, Carlos Ghosn, and like a lot of us, he's ready for another challenge. As Ghosn is only 59 years old and doesn't have a boss to fire him for paperclip theft, though, it's pretty unlikely that he'll be going anywhere anytime soon. Tavares doesn't seem too concerned, based on an interview he gave to Automotive News. "We have a big leader and he is here to stay," Tavares told AN.
What's surprising is where Tavares wants to go, "Why not GM? I would be honored to lead a company like GM." The Renault exec also mentioned Ford, and as AN points out, both organizations make a lot of sense. Both are led by CEOs that are approaching or are already past retirement age, and should be looking for dedicated replacements in the not-so-distant future. That doesn't mean Tavares is a shoe-in, though.

Renault promises new concept car and Dacia Duster in Frankfurt

Renault and Dacia will be headed to the 2013 Frankfurt Motor Show in a big way, with a new concept car from the French company and an all-new Duster from its Romanian budget brand. The new concept is particularly exciting, as Renault's press release mentions a "new brand identity." We can also count on this car being a bit higher on the luxury scale than Renault's traditional offerings.
Dacia's new Duster will have big shoes to fill when it hits the spotlights of Frankfurt. The current Duster (pictured), a small, handsomely rugged CUV, was introduced in 2010, and has been a critical hit in Great Britain, Russia, and India (where it's called the Renault Duster). It's also been a smash with customers, becoming Renault's best-selling global model.
Both the new Duster and Renault's latest concept will hit the stage in Frankfurt on September 10.