Autoblog UK

Iconic tuning brand Gordini is set to return. French manufacturer Renault announced in Paris that the Gordini name will be reintroduced for a new series of high-powered small cars. Renault Sport is to develop these models. First car in the new Gordini line-up will be a converted 133bhp Twingo Sport. Model launch is scheduled for late November and sales will commence in spring 2010. A second 201bhp Gordini-badged car will be unveiled in 2010, based on the Clio RS.

The current wave of nostalgia should increase sales for the French marque. The Gordini name has been synonymous with fast cars from France since the Thirties. Amedee Gordini, born 1899 in Italy, even built Formula One racing cars. Gordini's biggest success came in 1964 with the Renault R8, which secured four out of five top places on the Tour de Corse rally.

As with the supercars, the Golden Steering Wheel for MPVs was decided by readers' votes. Of the six vehicles in the frame, four were French. The Renault Scenic notched up 30.6% of over 250,000 readers' votes in 25 countries. The cars up for an award were: the Fiat Fiorino Qubo, Peugeot 3008 and 5008, Renault Kangoo Be Bob, the Scenic and the Toyota Verso.

Renault have an absolute cracker in the pipeline: the Megane Coupe Renaultsport 250. The Renaultsport soubriquet signals that this Megane will be following in the footsteps of its legendary predecessors, the Gordini and the Alpine. Visually, the new Renault differs from its sister models by virtue of the LED day-running lights, huge air vents and central exhaust pipe. The vehicle is powered by a two-litre turbocharged petrol engine delivering 250bhp. Coincidentally, the horsepower also matches the top speed in km/h: 250 (155mph). The Megane Renaultsport thus boasts 26bhp more than its predecessor and manages the 0 to 62mph sprint in 6.1 seconds. This sporty French number reaches the showrooms before the end of the month (October 2009). Renault are yet to announce the price.

In the wake of the Crashgate Affair, the Brazilian media are claiming that former Renault driver Nelson Piquet Junior is weighing up a switch to NASCAR racing. He thinks it unlikely that his involvement in the race-fixing scandal will permit him to get back into Formula One. "I did the sport a service but I ended up as the fall guy," said the Brazilian in a TV interview in his home country. "My career is finished. No-one was punished more harshly than me." He offered his apologies to all F1 racing fans but regretted that he couldn't undo what had been done.

Shunned by the F1 paddock, he now fancies his chances with Team Red Horse in the Camping World Truck Series. Apparently, he has already had a trial run, and his first public outing will come on 12th October at the Rockingham Speedway in North Carolina. Incidentally, Jacques Villeneuve pursued a similar course of action to obtain the necessary licences to launch his NASCAR career and compete in the Sprint Cup series – albeit without much success.

In recent weeks, there's been a lot of fuss about an accident that happened in F1 racing. Last season in Singapore, Nelson Piquet Jr deliberately crashed into a wall in order to bring out the safety car and help team-mate Fernando Alonso. The accident had been planned right from the start. Renault admitted that Flavio Briatore, Pat Symonds and Nelson Piquet Jr had hatched a plan together to manipulate the outcome of the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix and help team-mate Fernando Alonso by deliberately staging an accident. No other team members were complicit in the affair.

On Monday, the sport's governing body, the FIA, found Renault guilty in the Crashgate Scandal. However, the penalty of exclusion from the Formula One World Championship was reduced to probation. The rule breaches were so serious that disqualification from the Formula One World Championship was on the cards. In view of Renault's willingness to come clean, the team has been put on probation until the end of the 2011 season.

Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds have been excluded from all FIA events and championships. In addition, they are not allowed to lead any team nor manage a driver, as any FIA licences already granted to such persons would be withdrawn immediately. As a result of his admission of guilt, Symonds' ban is to last five years. Briatore faces indefinite exclusion. This is not just because of the severity of the breaches but also because of his denial of liability.

At the IAA in Frankfurt, almost every manufacturer has an electrically powered car on show, or at least a design study. Renault have gone one better than the competition with a quartet of four electric cars, which should be available from 2011.

Number one in the electric line-up is the Renault Twizy Z.E. Concept. At just 2.3 metres long and only 1.1 metres wide, this car is designed for the city. The second study – the Renault Zoe Z.E. Concept – is intended to carry four people. With a length of 4.1 metres and a wheel base of 2.6 metres, this model belongs in the compact class The third design, based on the Fluence notchback saloon, and called the. Fluence Z.E. Concept, likewise debuts at the IAA. It looks almost ready for mass production. The last of the four electric-powered musketeers, the Kangoo Z.E. Concept, launched before the start of the IAA, is aimed primarily at meeting the needs of trades people.

VW again has a genuinely compact sports car in the line-up with the new Golf GTI, but the true successors of the original GTI are cars like the Renault Clio Renault Sport. Small, manoeuvrable and phenomenally powerful. Of course, weighing in at around 1.3 tons, it's considerably heavier than the old GTI at just less than 900kg. That can be blamed primarily on safety, but still, it's 100kg lighter than today's GTI, Giving 201bhp from a high-revving, normally aspirated sport's engine, it sells at a reasonable price, of less than 23,000 smackers. In trimmed-down form, as the RS Cup, it's an out-and-out racer. And all that for a similarly trim figure, of less than 20,000 euros, 17,500 pounds.

The Renault Fluence will be shown for the first time at the IAA in Frankfurt. The French company will manufacture the hatch-back successor to the Megane in Turkey. The Fluence will be on sale there in November, but won't be available in Western Europe until spring 2010. At 4.62 metres, the four-door car is almost as big as a Laguna and has even more luggage space. The boot of the Fluence holds a generous 530 litres, which can be increased even further by folding the rear seat. The Renault has a wheel base of 2.7 metres and will have the interior space of a medium-sized saloon car.

As the year draws to a close, it's always fun to look back on the highlights. One of these was a sunny though otherwise unremarkable Thursday afternoon in Hockenheim, the third of three Formula One test sessions with Felipe Massa topping the time list, two tenths ahead of Heikki Kovalainen. I stroll through the paddock looking for someone who might be susceptible to interview. All of a sudden, my attention is attracted by a knot of people gathered in front of the Renault team pavilion.

Several mechanics are clustered round a black Audi. They are joined by Nelsinho Piquet who had already finished his test stint on Tuesday. The Brazilian looks relatively unconcerned, withdraws to a vantage point between the team trucks and observes what happens next in a detached manner.

What Renault have shown with their Sand'Up is nothing other than the matching concept version of the already premiered Sandero Stepway, i.e. an affordable leisure off-roader which, in keeping with the Zeitgeist, is replete with plastic and aluminium components.

But this prototype has a few more tricks up its sleeve. The doors of the Sand'Up are see-through, which makes for a light-infused interior. As the designers are only kidding, we won't pontificate about the side-impact safety spec. After all, we can dream, can't we? The rear tailgate can be opened up like on a Suzuki Jimny to give you that free-and-easy beach buggy feeling.

The subdued shading of the headlights would also look good on the series Sandero but might push up the price too much. The financial pros at Dacia have a reputation for wielding their red pens: interesting to see which features they consider viable for incorporation into the Sandero Stepway.