This Lego Renault 5 Turbo 3E looks good enough to become a real set
We know not every car needs to become a Lego set, but this Renault 5 Turbo 3E absolutely should.
Built by British engineer and Lego designer Dave Collins — who goes by devonbricks
online — this brick-built version of the gloriously unhinged Renault 5 electric hot hatch is one of those ideas that just feels right.
The project has been submitted to the Lego Ideas platform, where fan creations can be turned into official sets if they gather enough support. Renault would very much like people to get behind it and cast their vote, but more importantly, someone has made a very cool Lego version of a very cool car, and we’re into it.
The real Renault 5 Turbo 3E is a 555hp, limited-run electric “mini-supercar” with the sort of attitude that suggests subtlety was never invited to the design meetings. The Lego version uses around 1,200 pieces, took about 100 hours to create, and does a remarkably good job of capturing the car’s chunky, aggressive little shape.
It helps that the £140,000 Renault 5 Turbo 3E already looks a bit like it was designed by an overexcited teenager with a neon marker and lots of sugar. That makes it pretty much ideal Lego fodder, with enough visual drama to look good on a shelf even if you’ve never touched a Lego brick before.
Collins, who is based in Devon, said he got into designing his own Lego creations during the Covid lockdown, combining childhood memories of Lego and Technic with an engineer’s obsession with getting the details right. He also pointed out that angular cars tend to work especially well in brick form, which, frankly, is hard to argue with.
Will it become a proper Lego set? It’s too early to say, but if you’re going to build a tiny car from tiny bricks, it may as well be something this daft and this brilliant. It’s the kind of thing that makes you wish car makers and Lego collaborated on more genuinely interesting sets.
I’m still waiting for the Lego recreation of my imported original Renault Twingo…
He is the founder of Huff Media, publisher of Professional Pickup, Professional Van, Average Janes, Average Joes, and CALIBRE. His work focuses primarily on light commercial vehicles, pickups, and real-world vehicle use, with much of his time spent on manufacturer launches, industry events, and long-term vehicle testing.