1996 Renault Twingo Is Today's Bring a Trailer Auction Pick
• Here’s a tiny, friendly-faced city hatchback with an outsize personality.
• A masterpiece of packaging, the Twingo is roomy and comfortable, and the enormous canvas roof provides open-air motoring on demand.
• This car represents a highlight of French motoring whimsy. It’s currently up for auction on Bring a Trailer.
For a country so given to Gallic shrugs and black-and-white movies crammed with ennui, France really does know how to have fun on the road. English cars have a tweedy character, Italian exotics can be fierce, but the French do a sort of wheeled quirkiness that’s positively fizzing with zest. As they say, if it’s not from the Champagne region, it’s merely a sparkling hatchback.
Up for auction this week on Bring a Trailer—which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos—is a cheery green example of the peak of mid-’90s French design. It’s a 1996 Twingo, Renault’s city-car replacement for the venerable Renault 4. Just look at this car’s cherubic amphibian face, brimming with delight and ready to go careening around the streets of Paris like a motorized pinball. Doesn’t it look fun?
In a world where every new SUV grimaces like a murderous electric shaver, the Twingo is a throwback to a more lighthearted era of design. It wouldn’t be out of place in one of Hayao Miyazaki’s movies. In fact, Japan’s most beloved animator was and is partial to French motoring, having owned a series of Citroën 2CVs for decades.
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While the Twingo is a Renault rather than a Citroën, it can be argued that it’s the true everyman follow-up to France’s beloved tin snail. Conceived as a tiny van that maximized a stamp-sized parking footprint, the Twingo was full of clever design ideas, including flat-folding seats, a simple control layout, and wheels pushed to the absolute corners of the car. It embodies some of the best elements of the original Mini, the first-generation Honda Fit, and a host of other small but charming city cars.
This one is a 1996 model with about 103,000 kilometers (64,000 miles) on the odometer. Power comes from a thrifty 1.2-liter engine that puts 75 horsepowe through a five-speed manual transmission to the front wheels. On paper, the Twingo posts some leisurely acceleration times. Display a little elbows-out French driving élan, and it’s an absolute rocket.
Or at least it will feel like one from behind the wheel, what with that characteristic soft suspension and light steering. The Twingo is the sort of car that responds like an eager puppy when you pitch it into a corner, sawing at the wheel like Marcel Marceau miming steering a sinking pirate ship.
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Further delight can be found in the large retractable canvas roof, which is a bit like the one you get in a 2CV. A fairly tasteful aftermarket three-spoke wheel has been fitted, though the original factory two-spoke is also included in the sale. We say keep the three-spoke and pretend to be a budget-restricted René Arnoux.
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The only drawback to this Twingo is that it is not street-legal in every state. If you live in California, désolé, but the Twingo is not for you. The car is currently registered in Connecticut.
Should this pocket-size French import be legal to park in your driveway, make all haste to bid. With seven days left, bidding stands at just $2911. Miss out, and you’ll end up crying into your ratatouille while an accordion plays a mournful dirge.
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