Renault's F1 city car

A Formula 1 car for the road isn’t a new concept. Ferrari, and even McLaren, have been doing it for years.

But not like this.

Renault, in conjunction with its tuning arm Renault Sport, has upped the ante by jamming its Formula 1 tech into…its electric city car – the Twizy.

Basically, Renault has dropped an electric bomb into its tiny car, by hooking up an F1 KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System) to its existing dual electric motors.

In normal running the Twizy RS Concept produces the same 13kW as the standard road car, until, that is, you detonate the KERS system.

Do that and Twizy produces an additional 72kW for 13 seconds – a lot of extra grunt for a car that weighs the same as a paper clip.

To put it into perspective, the Twizy RS has roughly the same power to weight ratio as Renault’s Megan RS 265, allowing the little city car to hit 0-100km/h in six seconds flat.

Top speed is 110km/h, at which point the electric motor will be spinning at 10,000rpm and the KERS unit at 36,000rpm.

But F1 isn’t the only open wheeler category Renault has borrowed technology from.

The Twizy’s steering wheel is lifted from the Formula Renault 3.5 series, while other tech is borrowed from the Formula Renault 2.0 category.

Oh, and don’t think the Twizy RS Concept is purely a publicity stunt.

Renault is going to use it to tackle the Goodwood Hillclimb event during the Festival of Speed in July.