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Next Renault Twingo ready for its Swiss debut

Renault's diminutive city car, the Twingo, is set for a debut in a few weeks at the 2014 Geneva Motor Show. So naturally, the little hatchback has leaked out early. Carscoops came up with the original batch of images before Renault posted the official family photo you see above.
We'll need to wait until we get to Geneva to get all the details on the Twingo, but here's what we know so far. It's a relative of the upcoming Smart ForFour, but where that car uses a conventional front-engine, front-drive layout, the Twingo is backwards. That's right, this is a rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive city car. That concept on its own sounds spectacular.
Rumors, according to Carscoops, point to a three-cylinder engine for the Twingo. Owners should get to choose from both a do-it-yourself manual transmission and a dual-clutch gearbox. The little five-door should include a sportier trim, too, hopefully along the lines of the well-regarded Renaultsport Twingo 133. Whether that car is shown in the family portrait or if it will arrive at a later date remains unclear.

Vintage Renault R8 Gordini footage shows how fun rear-engined cars can be

Admit it - you occasionally spend hours on YouTube, watching footage from vintage rallies and pining for days gone by, don't you? That's okay, we're guilty of occasionally overindulging in classic motorsports footage ourselves. Case in point: this swinging little number featuring the Renault 8 Gordini, circa 1964.
The Gordini-tuned version of the homely (yet unforgettable) Renault 8 developed some 89 horsepower from its rear-mounted, 1.1-liter four-cylinder engine, which was operable via a four-speed manual gearbox and had underpinnings befitting the sort of racy action you'll find in the video below.
The tiny French sedan obviously made up for its lack of outright grunt with a double helping of handling panache, and it seems as though '60s racers had no trouble getting the thing to drift on a dime. Enjoy yourself while watching this one guys, the drivers of the Gordini sure did.

Renault Kwid concept eyes India's youth market [w/videos]

The 2014 New Dehli Auto Expo is turning into a big show for tiny crossovers. Chevrolet showed off its Adra Concept, and here is Renault's quirky little Kwid Concept. In a great example of how important the Indian market is becoming, this is the first concept the French company has ever debuted outside of Europe.
Despite its awkward name, the Kwid is aimed at young, Indian buyers who want to a cheap, fun car tailored for India's roads. It has a chunky, compact design with short overhangs to make it look ready to go off-road. However, you would not want to go too far off road - for this concept, Renault installed a front-wheel drive, 1.2-liter turbocharged engine with a dual-clutch transmission and a plug-in charging port behind the Renault logo in the front.
The interior is inspired by a bird's nest with overlapping straps to form the bench seat in the front. The driver sits in the center with a passenger on either side, and two can sit in the rear. The gauges are replaced by a TFT touchscreen.

Red Bull Racing unveils RB10 as pre-season testing kicks off

Ladies and gentlemen, here's the car that will win the 2014 Formula One World Championship... probably. Maybe. The success of Red Bull Racing over the past several years means that the debut of its 2014 challenger is one of the more note-worthy events of the preseason, showing off the latest piece of aerodynamic mastery from Adrian Newey.
Like the Ferrari F14 T, the Red Bull RB10 features a more conventional nose, which still plunges rather dramatically ahead of the front wheels. We're seeing a very interesting split early in the season between the top teams like Red Bull and Ferrari, who are opting for a more traditional design, and the mid-pack challengers, which are being more aggressive with their aerodynamics. Seeing how this plays out during the season will be very interesting. As for RBR's design, it's attractive, but wasn't easy to pen, according to Newey, who found the turbocharged V6s a difficult piece in the new F1 puzzle.
"Whereas the V8s were a very well-known package, with these power units, the engine itself is easy enough to install, but then of course you've got the turbocharger, the intercoolers, and the electrical side in terms of the motor generator units and much bigger batteries," Newey told the official Formula One website.

Renault showcases new F1-spec hybrid turbo V6 power unit for 2014

Engine development is typically frozen in Formula One. So the Renault R27 engine that propelled Sebastian Vettel to the championship last season, for example, was by and large the same one that drove him to his previous three titles, and the same design that has motivated countless other Red Bull, Lotus, Caterham, Williams and Renault challengers since 2007. But for 2014 the FIA has completely changed the rulebook, ditching the 2.4-liter V8 engines and their Kinetic Energy Recovery System for an entirely new design. What you see here is Renault's new grand prix propulsion system that's set to power over a third of the grid this season.
The Renault Energy F1-2014 Power Unit is comprised of a 1.6-liter turbocharged V6 engine with direct injection and a 15,000 rpm redline mated to a new Energy Recovery System with two electric motors - one recovering energy from the brakes and the other from the exhaust - storing the energy in an onboard battery (as opposed to the mechanical flywheel other constructors had toyed with earlier). Together they're capable of producing 760 horsepower - around 600 horses comes from the internal-combustion engine and the rest from the hybrid assist.
That's about the same output as the previous V8 engines were producing, but the new power units have to be more economical and last longer: While the V8s could consume fuel as fast as the team wanted (at least until the elimination of mid-race refueling), the new turbo V6 can only use 100 kg of fuel per hour. What's more is that 100 kg of fuel has to last the entire race distance, representing a 35-percent decrease over last year, and each driver only gets five engines for the entire season.

Gran Turismo vs reality as Red Bull pro-gamer takes on Nismo pro racer

The last time we saw a real racing driver pitted against a professional gamer, Viagame threw one of each in a Renault Megane RS and the contest was staged as the pro driver navigated the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona. That could be seen as a handicap for the gamer, since he's got to get his drive on while dealing with all sorts of unfamiliar G-force sensations that are out of time with what he's doing. Even so, the gamer won.
Nismo has taken its turn, running almost the same contest at Silverstone in the UK. This time, though, it has put its GTAcademy Driver and pro driver Wolfgang Reip in a car by himself, while Red Bull pro gamer Erik Leštach gets to play Gran Turismo 6 safely locked down in the pits. With each driver in his chosen milieu, the game is afoot.
You can find out who won by watching the video below, and for a chance to win something yourself, Nismo will send a box of goodies to whomever guesses the winning time in the video's comments on YouTube.

Gamer faces racer at the track to find out who's faster

The Nissan GT Academy has than proven that hardcore gamers can become real-life racers, but Viagame wanted to see what would happen if a gamer raced head-to-head against a racer... in real time. To accomplish this, Viagame recruited a top gamer from Sweden and put him up against a racer for a one-lap sprint around Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona.
To make the head-to-head race as close as possible, a full racing simulator was installed in the passenger seat of a Renault Megane RS, and both drivers "raced" the same car on the same track at the same time. We don't want to give away the winner, but both men had unique challenges.
From the gamer's perspective, it must have been interesting to race virtually but deal with real g-forces that may not have matched up where he was on the track. On the other hand, the racer actually had to drive the car in real life instead of the gamer's virtual world - note the hand-over-hand steering wheel action by the gamer at about the two minute mark. Scroll down to watch the two race, and let us know what you think of the results in the Comments.

Renaultsport prepares Dacia Duster to tackle Dakar

If you've ever seen a Dacia up close, it'd probably strike you as one of the least likely vehicles to take racing. The Romanian-made vehicles (also sold as Renault models in certain markets) typically drive around a hundred horsepower to the front wheels through a five-speed gearbox and offer little more. Nor should they, really, because they're budget-oriented forms of transportation, but neither should they be taken racing. Or so you might assume, but apparently nobody has told that to the engineers at Renaultsport, who have prepared Dacias to compete at Pikes Peak, in the Andros Trophy for ice racing and at the Dakar rally.
That's where the firm's Argentinean team intends to field a pair of V6-powered Dusters next month. In fact they already entered an earlier version of the vehicle in the rally this past January, but apparently couldn't manage to finish any higher than 29th place. The Renault team is undoubtedly hoping for a better result this year, and while they haven't released any details on the vehicle's specifications, you can check it out in the video clip below.

Renault sets up full-scale Scalextric track in downtown London [w/poll]

Racing fans in the UK have been clamoring for the British Grand Prix to move from Silverstone into London proper for years, and that's almost what they'll get in June 2015 when the nascent Formula E series will race around their streets. It'll essentially amount to a full-scale Scalextric track, but though Renault will power all the cars (for the first season at least), the French automaker - which has been betting big on electric vehicles - isn't waiting around that long.
In the video below, Renault claims to have set up an actual full-scale Scalextric track around the streets of the British capital, modified a pair of Zoe electric city cars and airlifted a couple of supposed contest winners by helicopter to control the cars remotely. Is the footage real? That's doubtful. But does that make it any less fun to watch? Have a look, and then cast your vote right here.
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Renault bids fond farewell to its F1 V8

Lots of things change over time in Formula One, but its eras have largely been defined by their engine formula. The turbo era gave way to the V12, then the V10 and on to the V8 that ran its final laps at last weekend's Brazilian Grand Prix. But as it officially hands over the driveshaft to the new 1.6-liter turbo V6 that will replace it next season, Renault wants to say goodbye to the 2.4-liter V8 that has formed the backbone of the series for as many years as it has pistons.
Why Renault, you ask? Because the French manufacturer has accounted for the lion's share of the wins over the course of the past eight years. Though Renault no longer runs its own team, the prolific RS27 engine powers Red Bull, Lotus, Williams and Caterham efforts, which Renault has propelled to 59 race wins to account for 40-percent of the checkered flags of the V8 era. It's also claimed 65 pole positions, 55 quickest laps and, most notably, five driver World Championships and another five Constructors' titles.
Over the past eight years, Renaultsport has built 1,271 engines, 683 of which were used on track and another 588 on dynos. They've covered over two million kilometers (about one and a quarter million miles) and gone through over seven and a half million parts, the breakdown of which you can read in the press release below. But one thing's for sure: no matter how the next turbo/hybrid era works out, the V8 era will be one to remember - and Renault's was king of them all.