We can safely call the first Renault Twingo an iconic car. Entire tribes moved into it and it is still a popular car, especially for young people, despite its age. Exactly 30 years ago we received the first sign of life for the car that was then still known as ‘Project X 06’.
In the early 1990s, Renault benefited greatly from a model that was practical, nicely lined and spacious, but was also simple and did not cost too much. The archaic 4 had already left Europe behind and the 5 had been succeeded by the significantly larger and more modern Clio. So there’s work to be done. Exactly 30 years ago we got the first sign of life of the new entry-level Renault model. Just like nowadays, a lot of work was already being done to conceal design details, as is clear from these unfortunately not all equally sharp photos.
The Twingo was still known at that time as ‘Project X 06’ and that’s how we referred to it in Techzle 19 of that year. The name Twingo, a combination of ‘twist’, ‘swing’ and ‘tango’, was completely unknown at the time. With retroactive effect, however, we can say that the Renault camouflage department did a good job, but the Twingo secretly gave up quite a lot of secrets. Yet we still fell in a few disguises: “The headlights look half-moon shaped, but if you look closely, you will see that there are Clio-like headlights under the nose.” That turned out to be a bit more eccentric. A funny detail is that the prototype already had recesses in its housing for the three cooling grids in the hood.
In any case, the total picture could immediately count on admiration, even though some details were not yet fully visible. “The designers have taken this new direction with fresh courage. The smallest Renault is simple but modern, has a sympathetic feel and is definitely more distinctive than the Fiat Panda. It is a model of innovation.” That could also be said about the interior, which also appeared quite well in the picture. The most striking element we found at the time was that there was no classic instrumentation for the steering wheel. A nice comparison was made: “The instruments are in the center of the dashboard, just like in the old models of the British Mini. The warning lights are right in front of the driver.” What we did not know at the time is that the central instrument cluster did not have analog clocks, but would become a real digital display.
At that time also still unknown: it would take about two years before the Twingo was actually unveiled. So this prototype was really early on. The guesswork about the powertrain therefore turned out not to be entirely correct. At the time, we still suspected that there would be only one engine choice and that a manual four-speed gearbox would be linked to it as standard. However, Renault did not use that low, because the gearbox was given an extra gear and, incidentally, only after a few years, there would be an international choice of a 1.0 and a 1.2 and a three-speed automatic transmission was added. What was true was that the Twingo got a further developed Cléon-Fonte engine, although it cleared the field after a few years for a more modern 1.2.
The first generation Twingo turned out to be a bull’s eye and lasted no less than 14 years before Renault thought it was time for a new generation. In Colombia it even remained in production until 2012.2.6 million copies were made of the first Twingo in total. In the Netherlands, roughly 30,000 of them are still driving around.
Incidentally, there was already a car in Japan in the 1980s that shows many similarities with the later Twingo: the Honda Today.