6 REASONS RENAULTS FLYING

One car company above all others has had the most ridiculous slam dunk of a year.

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1 RENAULT 5 TURBO 3E

Retro done right is a complicated proposition. Too much cut 'n' paste and you're in a world of heavy handed pastiche, the blood and bones of caricature. Too little, and your nod to the past ends up imperceptible, message unreceived. But Renault in the middle 2020s seems to be walking the line with some grace. First up we get the reborn 5, scaled up into a modern, safety satisfying outline, but with the proportions that ape the original. New school drivetrain, but with the comforting shapes of a classic hatch. Younger people think it's cool, older people - the ones with the fond memories - find those reminiscences well served. The details are fun and interesting, the hardware on point. It's a sales success and deserves to be. And ditto the 4, another revivalmod that remembers what made the original so satisfying, giving a taste of the past with the flavours of the future. They're both great.

But the Renault 5 also had a proper wild side. Back in the early 1980s, it morphed, under rally homologation rules, into the Renault 5 Turbo. A Group B refugee whose back seats had been swallowed by a 1.4-litre turbocharged four pot with 160bhp. A car the length of a small sofa that now had rear wheel drive and plenty of dynamic surprises for the unwary. These days, those cars are legendary - both for their layout and their boxy, blocky, function over form aesthetic. And if you want to take inspiration from your back catalogue, it really helps if that history has some stone cold icons lurking at the back of the room.