Renault FRENDZY Concept off to Frankfurt

The bi-polar Renault Frendzy Concept

Nothing floats Renault’s boat quite as much as a pile of batteries attached to an electric motor. Unless it’s an off-the-wall concept heading for a motor show.

Put the two together and you have a Renault designer’s wet dream. So there must have been some clammy designers at Renault as they signed off the reveal of the Renault FRENDZY Concept – an electric, barking mad concept heading for the Frankfurt Motor Show in September.

Renault has produced in the FRENDZY just what every buyer could want (on the strange planet car designers inhabit, that is) – a van that becomes a car at the weekend. How did we live without such a concept (did Vince’s dad’s Comma Cob with deckchairs in the back achieve the same thing?).

On workdays the FRENDZY has just a driver’s seat, a big sliding door on one side and a great big 2250 litre empty space that can even hold oversize objects thanks to its flexible canvas roof (yep, we’ve even got a touch of the cheap campervans going on too).

At the weekends the FRENDZY has a bench seat in the back which folds out from the floor and a front passenger seat which appears from out of the dashboard. The ‘atmosphere’ also changes from workday ‘Molten Metal’ to playday ‘Warm Orange’, a theme inspired by camping, apparently. Joy of joys.

Under the skin this FRENDZY is a Kangoo, powered by the same 59bhp electric motor and battery pack as the Kangoo Z.E. Renault say they’ve put a lot of work in to the broad range of sounds the FRENDZY can make. Yes, they really say that.

They say, and it’s hard to believe they’re serious, that “…variety of sounds that are emitted both inside and outside of the vehicle to ensure that everyone can tell whether it is in business or passenger car mode, thanks simply to its sound signature.” Why would anyone care?

As far as the sounds are concerned, the ‘Sound Composer’, Andrea Cera, said:

“Exploring the most informative sounds possible led me to work on variations in speed in order to express them in a clear manner. When accelerating hard, the sound becomes sharper, with a little wind noise. For deceleration phases, I added a more prominent notion of wind which provides greater scope for adapting the sound as a function of how the vehicle is being employed.”

This appears to be the world according to planet Renault.

We prefer the Comma Cob with a deckchair.

(12 photos – click any thumbnail for full gallery)

By Cars UK