Official: the new R5 Turbo gets 536bhp, a massive 3,540lb ft, and a rally handbrake

The Renault 5 Turbo 3E appears to be getting angrier, and… actually we quite like it when it’s angry. Because since it first burst onto the scene in a haze of tyre smoke and EV squeal, it’s grown from 500bhp to 536bhp.

More than that, it’s able to pump out a whopping 3,540lb ft (4,800Nm) of torque, which is a) enough to give it a blistering 0-62mph time, but mostly b) downright terrifying.

So, welcome again to the future of Renault hot hatchery. Please keep your arms and legs firmly inside the vehicle, because you’ll need to hold on tight. The reincarnation of Renault’s Eighties hero gets a pair of in-wheel motors hiding in its back wheels, making it a 536bhp, planet-shaking hooligan.

Or a “beast”, in Renault’s parlance, “built for rallying, drift and track performance, adapted for the road”. It’s built around a bespoke aluminium platform developed by Alpine, developed specifically to be rear-wheel-drive, and swaddled in carbon fibre panels.

So the windscreen’s a bit further back than the standard Renault 5 EV, the wheelbase is longer, and the whole car is phat as hell. Renault reckons it’s a ‘mini-supercar’.

A mini-supercar running on 800V technology, a 70kWh battery hidden in the floor and able to recharge from 15 to 80 per cent in just 15 minutes via a 350kW hose, and those twin in-wheel motors each putting out 268bhp each.

Renault said these motors offer “immediate power” versus a regular e-motor, “for an effect not unlike the turbos of yesteryear, but without the lag time”. That was half the fun of the old R5 Turbo, but then this is half the weight again.

Because it clocks in at 1,450kg, and Renault claims a 0-62mph time of under 3.5s. Renault also reckons the new R5 Turbo is able to complete “several” hot laps of your chosen circuit at speeds of up to 168mph flat out.

To make those circuit sessions more enjoyable, possible nudging 'uncomfortably fast', a range of modes are available including ‘Snow’, ‘Regular’, ‘Sport’, and ‘Race’, the latter including the ‘drift-assist’ function. No doubt it’ll assist in putting a grin on your face as wide as those arches.

You’ll be grinning from inside a very spartan, race-bred interior. Indeed this is our first look at the R5 Turbo’s insides, and… it barely qualifies as a road car. There’s a pair of digital displays in front of the driver measuring 10.1in and 10.25in for all your data, a pair of bucket seats with six-point harnesses, lots of carbon and Alcantara and – wahey! – a “rally-style” vertical handbrake. But that’s it.

Naturally, you’ll be able to tailor your own R5 Turbo with a range of options including the original launch colours from the Eighties cars, along with interior trim customisation too. Which you’d expect for its target price: though Renault hasn’t confirmed a price, you can... bank on something over £120k, and nearly double that after you’ve ticked a few boxes.

There’ll be 1,980 of these built – geddit? – each will be numbered, and they’ll be squaring down your local supercar meet from 2027 onwards. Just don’t make it angry, you… actually might like it when it’s angry.