RENAULT

Renault 4 E-Tech buggy version

The new electric Renault R4 E-Tech is not expected to be introduced until mid-2025. But one designer, anticipating the model's popularity, has already come up with a buggy version.

Renault is in a retro tide and that's why, after relaunching the R5 in 2024, it is preparing to bring back to life the R4, the famous 4L. But, just like the R5, in the E-Tech version, which for the French brand is synonymous with 100% electric. The Renault 4 E-Tech is the family SUV, larger and more spacious than the R5 and a little more expensive, but it should only hit the market in mid-2025. This allowed designer Marco Maltese to propose a more irreverent, buggy-style and particularly well-made version of the R4.

The designer did not invent gunpowder when he created the buggy chic version of the R4, since in 1964 Renault, in collaboration with Sinpar, designed the Plein-Air to participate in a competition requested by the French military, who needed a simple, cheap vehicle... without doors or a roof. In 1981, the company Car Système designed its beach buggy, called the R4 JP4, but which the Italians named “Frog”, with only two seats and a retractable canvas roof.

The model now designed by Maltese, based on the R4 E-Tech, is more versatile, offering four seats, wide wheels (to make it easier to get on loose sand) and nice unpainted plastic fender flares to give it a more off-road look. The central roll-bar and the top of the windshield together allow you to transport surfboards, and inside you can still find the instrument panel and the central panel together, just like in the R4 E-Tech that will be sold in mid-2025.

And because the weather conditions don't always invite a trip to the beach, the chic buggy is equipped with a canvas hood, to which the doors are attached. However, Maltese does not specify how and where the soft top is stored when retracted, as well as the time required to open and close the roof cover.

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