Renault Rounds off the 4’s 60th Birthday in Unexpectedly Airborne Style

Renault’s year-long celebrations of the mighty 4’s 60th birthday have led to this. It is, and there is no other way to describe it, a flying Renault 4. We did not expect that, did we?

“Made entirely of carbon fibre, it has the same lines and mass as the original 4L,” they say, “but offers new dynamic possibilities.”

You do not say. But while the lines remain the same, we are promised that “rigidity has been completely revised”. The reason? “To take into account new concepts such as thrust or lift, which required hours of calculations and tests.”

The Renault AIR4 was developed with the help of The Arsenale. The most important data and figures take us into uncharted territory: 22,000mAh lithium-polymer batteries generate a total power of about 90,000mAh. Each of the four propellers delivers 95kg of thrust, for a total of 380kg.

The maximum take-off speed is 14 metres per second but is limited to 4 m/s “for safety reasons”. In the air, it reaches a top speed of 26 m/s (at a maximum altitude of 700 m) before landing at a rate of 3 m/s. Its maximum angle of inclination is 70 degrees.

Can not you imagine that? Join us in the club of the bewildered. “After a year of celebrating, we wanted to create something unconventional to close 4L’s 60th anniversary,” says Renault marketing boss Arnaud Belloni. “The collaboration with the Arsenale was a logical consequence. The AIR4 flying show car is something previously unseen and an indication of what this icon could look like in another 60 years.”

And what a wink that is. But we do not have to wait 60 years for a new Renault 4; a more down-to-earth version is on its way soon, reborn as an electric car. With a set of numbers that we hope will be easier to wrap our heads around.

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