Nobody Told Renault That It's Backwards Day

Derek Kreindler
by Derek Kreindler

Just when it looked like Citroen had a lock on weird, funky French cars, rival Renault has come out swinging with their new Twingo A-Segment car.

Unlike previous Twingos, which had a transverse layout, the new one has a rear-engined, rear-drive setup, like the best Porsches, Fiat 500s and wide-arched Renault hot hatches. TTAC’s Europhiles will be pleased to know that we are actually getting the Twingo, but not in a Renault wrapper – thanks to a platform sharing agreement with Daimler, the Twingo will underpin the next Smart. Meanwhile in Bavaria, a front-drive BMW is coming. Who would have thought?




Derek Kreindler
Derek Kreindler

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  • Victor Victor on Feb 18, 2014

    That's the VW Up I was waiting for, had VW some balls to be true to its own concept. Light, compact, rwd... Sign me up.

  • Krhodes1 Krhodes1 on Feb 19, 2014

    Very interesting. With a modern tiny engine it should still have plenty of cargo space in the back. And with no engine in the front it should not need power steering. Electronic stability control will keep it from being unruly. A nice example of French lateral thinking!

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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