The Renault Twingo is a model that may not ring a bell amongst drivers in the United States, but the triple-portmanteau compact with its named derived from “Twist,” “Swing,” and “Tango” is a European classic of sorts. With millions sold since its launch at the 1992 Mondial de l’Automobile in Paris, the French automaker is celebrating the city car’s mileage across three decades with the 2023 Elle Deco International Designer of the Year Award winning Sabine Marcelis giving the frog-eyed compact a transparently modern redesign.
The sculpted bonnet draws sharply downward toward a pair of arched-eyed headlamps complemented further down by twin lips of LED illuminated lights, retaining the Twingo’s characteristically friendly visage.
Originally born from French automotive designer Patrick Le Quément’s aspiration to bring to market a car representing “instinctive design against extinctive marketing” back in the late 1980s, the compact aerodynamic wedge would prove popular enough to go onto see three redesigns in 1998, 2000, and 2004 before being put to rest in 2021. But none are so wildly distinctive as the treatment bestowed by Marcelis in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the original Twingo.
The Twingo as reimagined by the Dutch designer and artist is an all-electric vehicle retaining its compact people-mover spirit, elevated by a vibrantly red, futuristic interior.
The embossed Renault logo aligns with the exterior’s subtly sculpted framed design.
LED lighting is incorporated underneath the exterior surfacing, resulting in a softer glow; the effect is evocative of the matte translucent plastic designs once ubiquitous during the aughts (it’s also hard not to draw some comparison in form to another cute-eyed concept with a similar futuristic take on mobility, Marc Newson’s Ford 021C Concept Car).
Under the direction of the non-automotive designer/artist, the 30th anniversary edition Twingo is revived as a ghostly bodied translucent wedge, a design that reveals the vehicle’s underlining structure while also accentuating the vehicle’s richly burgundy and red interior. The treatment is most dramatically expressed by the Twingo’s transparent red button-shaped steering wheel.
The futuristic interior includes illuminated climate vents and center controls.
The candied interior design extends across the length of a red-tinted sunshade sight across a digital instrument cluster and infotainment screen, with a panoramic roof overhead.
The small flat protrusion of the Twingo’s rearview mirrors share a biomorphic semblance to that of the adorably finned, dumbo octopus.
The all-white flat plate wheels with stitched smooth tread tires are fashionable rather than functional.
A soft light spilling forth from the Twingo’s circular motif door handle.
2023 Elle Deco International Designer of the Year Award winner, Sabine Marcelis.
If its smooth all-white stitched tires are not a giveaway, the Marcelis-imagined Renault Twingo will only exist as a one-off celebratory concept, one intended to showcase a non-automotive designer’s interpretation of an alternative road toward the future of mobility.
