If Renaultsport Returns, It Needs To Be Done Right

For much of the first part of this century, Renaultsport was a name synonymous with some utterly brilliant hot hatches. Various spicy versions of the Megane, Clio and even Twingo swept up praise, adorned car magazine covers and won fans all over the world, and rightly so – they were fantastic.

Renaultsport’s journey, though, seemingly came to an end in 2023, with the Megane RS Ultime, a limited edition that Renault, at the time, called “the last model to feature the Renaultsport logo.” From then on, it said, all of Renault’s performance efforts would be consolidated under the reborn Alpine brand, which is, to all intents and purposes, the same outfit as Renaultsport, just with a different name and more blue.

Until recently, that seemed like it’d continue to be the case. After some years making the sensational A110 sports car, Alpine is in the middle of a product launch spree, unveiling both the A290 – the hot version of the new Renault 5, seemingly confirming that fettled Renault products would be branded as Alpines going forward – and the A390, a standalone EV crossover not directly based on anything in the Renault stable.

So far, so easy to follow, except it would appear that Renault has already had a change of heart. Attending a preview of the lightly unhinged and hugely exciting Renault 5 Turbo 3E earlier this year, we noticed that it carried subtle badging from the apparently defunct Renaultsport brand, something that was explained to us at the time as ‘a tribute’ to the much-loved badge.

Now, though, it appears a full-on revival could be on the cards. Autocar reports that at a Munich Motor Show press conference, Renault’s new CEO, Fabrice Cambolive, outlined plans to reposition the electric Megane as a hot hatch, but hinted that it would continue to wear Renault badges rather than becoming an Alpine, as the warmed-over version of the 5 has.

This echoes something Cambolive’s predecessor, Luca de Meo, told the same publication back in February. He suggested that the Renaultsport badge isn’t entirely dead, but merely on ice, ready for a potential revival.

So, great, right? The badge that adorned some of our favourite hot hatches of all could be making a comeback. Is that a good thing, though? Renault has invested a lot in developing Alpine as a standalone brand, making some excellent products – isn’t there a chance that reviving another performance badge could just muddy those waters, especially when Alpine still has plenty more of its ‘dream garage’ still to reveal, let alone a fully-fledged supercar?

There’s also the question of whether a reborn Renaultsport would live up to expectations. The cars it used to do best were pared-back petrol hot hatches with fizzy engines and manual gearboxes, whereas anything it potentially builds in the future will almost certainly be fully electric. A hot EV would have to be seriously good – like, Hyundai Ioniq 5 N levels of good – to live up to that heritage, and it’ll certainly see the price points shift away from the relative affordability that also marked out Renaultsport products of old.

Perhaps I’m wrong, and a revival of Renaultsport would work. Alpine, after all, is already chasing after a different, higher-end market than Renaultsport used to, and an RS comeback could bring Renault’s performance offerings back down towards earth – although potentially spearheading that with the limited-edition, £140,000 5 Turbo 3E doesn’t necessarily send out that message. It would also leave space for Alpine to sell its own standalone cars, like the A390 and next-gen electric A110, with RS going back to modifying existing Renault models. That, though, would leave the R5-based A290 looking like something of an outlier.

Really, we’d never complain about a mass-market manufacturer selling cars under two totally different performance badges at a time when lots of companies can barely justify having one. We know too that Renault’s on a roll, churning out some fantastic products under both the Renault and Alpine banners (and not forgetting Dacia).

But if Renaultsport does make a comeback, it’ll have to be done right – otherwise it risks both watering down its own heritage, as well as throwing the role of Alpine into confusion just as it eyes up expansion.