Fifteen years ago
Fifteen years ago, we first became acquired with the Renault Zoe, which has long since been replaced by the Renault 5 E-Tech Electric. At the Paris Motor Show, the Zoe Preview was displayed, which looked sharper and more appealing than the eventual first Zoe that came to market in 2012. We mistakenly assumed that the future Clio would also inherit many characteristics of this concept car.
It’s Friday afternoon, and as often happens, we’re browsing through old AutoWeek issues. We pause at AutoWeek 40 2010. That was the big show issue following the Paris Motor Show. What a mega car celebration that was! Take the brand Lotus, which had even rented an entire hall at the massive showground. We drove home elated after the event – the crisis that had erupted a few years earlier seemed truly over. ‘Most fun show of the year’ we splashed as a quote on the cover.
But we’re highlighting the Zoe Preview again. We had already forgotten that this concept car hinting at an electric future looked much sharper than the first production Zoe. Our enthusiasm was so great that we expected the study model displayed in Paris already revealed the design direction of the next Clio. We wrote that in all our publications, including this article on the website. The next Clio we meant ultimately bore no resemblance to that Zoe Preview. Laurens van den Acker designed a delightful Clio that came to market in 2012, and that Zoe Preview was simply refined and made more normal for market introduction in that same year.
We fell for it again: concept cars are presented so dressed up! Large wheels, nicely filled wheel arches, slightly more striking-looking headlights, thick bumpers. You always have to mentally remove at least ten to fifteen percent of the bling from the exterior display.