Step into the carbon fibre passenger seat of the new Renault 5 Turbo 3E. Ignore the wonderfully retro dashboard graphics and the rally-style handbrake sprouting from the centre console, and look into your footwell.

Renault is pitching the 5 Turbo 3E as a "mini-supercar" and backs up that claim with its length-to-width ratio of 2.01. That’s hardly a statistic that’s in the lexicon of car enthusiasts, but if you’re creating new genres you have to draw comparisons where you can.

The electric return of Renault’s iconic sports car has just taken a step closer to reality—and we got our first glimpse of it.