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The extreme Renault 5 Turbo 3E is sold out until 2028, with just half the build run still to be allocated.

The 533bhp hyper-hatchback is an electric tribute to the original Renault 5 Turbo, with wild styling, a totally bespoke platform and supercar-baiting performance.

It is highly exclusive, with just 1980 units planned to be produced – a reference to the launch year of the original car – and the first 1000 cars have now been spoken for. Prices now start at £140k for the remaining cars, slightly inflated over the £135k launch price.

"Currently, we are globally at half of the total volume, so reservations are for delivery in 2028," project leader Michael Grosjean told Autocar as the 3E made its dynamic debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. 

"It's sold out until 2028 - and there is still one and a half years of production that can be reserved." 

The company has started building the first prototypes and is on course to begin customer deliveries next year, Grosjean said, adding that Renault's most expensive car yet has so far attracted a diverse range of buyers.

"We have various customers, but what is common to all is that they are all passionate about wild cars and sports cars. Some are owners of the original R5 Turbo, and they want to have the new one as well.

"Some have more cars – Alpines, Ferraris, Porsches - and they find that this car is different, exotic in the landscape."

The 3E is due to finish production in 2029, and Grosjean said there are not currently any plans to follow it up with similarly extreme limited editions but other models in the line-up could be celebrated in the same way. 

Asked if, for example, the company could celebrate the heritage of the Renault 4 with a Dakar Rally-themed version of the new electric crossover, Grosjean said: "It's possible. It's not planned, but why not?"

The 5 Turbo 3E is loosely based on today's retro-styled Renault 5 electric supermini but with a bespoke platform, its own bodywork and a pair of in-wheel motors. 

These combine to produce a claimed 3540 lb ft of wheel torque, although the torque transferred to the road is likely to be more like 10% of that figure.

The resulting performance is a 0-62mph time expected to take less than 3.5sec, 0-120mph in under 9.0sec and a track-only top speed of 168mph.

The in-wheel motors are said to deliver their power to the rear wheels more immediately than conventional ones, while enabling more precise control of each wheel and providing a "significant" weight and space saving at the axle. 

The technology – which Autocar understands has been supplied by British specialist Protean Electric – removes the need for an electronic differential.

The motors draw their power from a 70kWh battery pack that is fitted in a way that optimises agility and offers "spectacular" drift capabilities, claims Renault. It even has a dedicated drift mode and a rally-style vertical handbrake.

The battery pack is good for a range of 250 miles, although Renault has admitted that it will last between 15 and 20 minutes when driven flat out on a track.

Given its track credentials, the thermal management of the battery is such that it can be driven at speeds of up to 168mph before being fast-charged at 350kW, enabling it to charge from 15% to 80% in 15 minutes.

Renault CEO Fabrice Cambolive said: "For me, it was very important to be able to have as extensive as possible coverage in terms of customer needs for the 5 - beginning with a very interesting price bracket but opening the adoption of this car to people who want extreme sensations.

"When you have such a car which is such fun to drive, why not push the boundaries?"

The all-aluminium platform was developed by Renault’s sporting sibling brand, Alpine, and has been designed to achieve no compromise in performance, lightness, agility or efficiency. It aims to be "in line with supercar standards".

The platform sits under a bespoke body made of lightweight materials, with only the mirror, door handle and tail-lights carried over from the standard Renault 5. Its carbon-composite structure means it has a kerb weight of around 1450kg, which is just 1kg more than the Renault 5 despite its larger battery pack, extra performance and additional motor.

It has been designed to look like a supercar while referencing the original 5 Turbo and 5 Turbo 2, with aero-optimised front and rear bumpers as well as a front splitter and a large air outlet on the bonnet to maximise downforce. It also has side scoops to funnel air under the rear lights and make it as slippery as possible, along with rear wing extensions, large intakes to cool the motors, 20in alloys and a squat overall appearance.

The menacing appearance has been achieved thanks to a change in dimensions. It's 158mm longer, 256mm wider and 118mm taller than the standard 5, with the windscreen moved back and the wheelbase extended to help it achieve "the length of a city car for the width of a supercar". 

Talking about the challenges faced when designing the car, Renault Group design boss Laurens van den Acker said: "The big enemy is weight because of the battery. This car is 1450kg and we're trying to get it lower knowing that an Alpine A110 in aluminium is 1000-plus kilos. This is the biggest drawback: weight and price. Weight is a never-ending battle."

When asked about the subsequent learning curves during development, van den Acker said: "I think we've learned that conceptually it's possible to put our dreams on the road. I've had a long career in design and we've stood there in front of a concept car and said: 'This gives you an impression of the future direction, but it won't be like this, because A, B, C, D, E'. The biggest eye-opener to us is how close to the concept we can get if the company is behind it."

Inside are a pair of bucket seats upholstered in Alcantara, hand-woven tartan cloth on the dashboard, six-point harnesses, a raft of weight-reducing carbon and the same 10.1in instrument display and 10.25in infotainment touchscreen as in the standard 5, although in this car the instrument display will have its own, 1980s-inspired look. The driver's seat will be upholstered in its own colour.

Cambolive previously suggested to Autocar that there could be more performance models in the pipeline for Renault after this. "I prefer to speak about Turbo 3E, and after that to see what we can do on top of that if Turbo 3E is a success," he said. "Let's build our 'sportivity' step by step."

The pauses didn’t help, nor not knowing quite when they’d come. And there was more than one kind of pause to be experienced aboard a Smart Roadster. 

The most obvious, and persistent, was the between-gears interruption generated by the automated manual transmission. The Roadster’s gearbox was not an especially speedy shuffler of clustered cogs and its six gears meant that, unless cruising, you’d experience perpetual ascents and descents of its generous ratio set. And if you left the ’box to think about its own shifting, you’d find that you were never quite ready for the moment when it chose to cut the power supply from the mid-mounted triple, even with familiarity.

There were dynamic hesitations too. This was an exceptionally light, mid-engined sports car that ought to have changed direction like a dragonfly. Spear a bend, and in the first instant you’d think it was going to do just that, the front wheels eagerly steering a new trajectory. But then the Smart’s athleticism would start to evaporate. You couldn’t call it understeer, but if you were expecting Lotus Elise balletics, well, you’d have to buy the real thing.

There was more, besides – the Roadster’s traction control dropping the curtain on any on-the-limit expeditions before they really started. It looked like a sports car, and an exciting one at that, but the Roadster’s cornerus interruptus methods protected its occupants from almost all kinds of on-the-road excitements. Still, after Mercedes’ adventures with toppling A-Classes and Smart Fortwos accelerating hard enough to land flat on their backs, you could understand the caution.

In plenty of other ways, though, the Roadster was the result of some admirably brave decisions. The bold Smart project wobbled for more than stability reasons, the two-seat city car falling massively short of sales expectations following its (delayed) 1998 debut, but that didn’t stop the Roadster project going ahead. Indeed, this dinky little device promised to deal with Smart’s mild glamour deficit.

It was also admirably true to the Fortwo’s construction concept. There was the so-called Tridion safety cell, this the pressed steel inner tub that provided a structure from which to hang the suspension, powertrain and a colourful collection of composite body panels. The engine was the same lively 698cc turbo triple that powered the Fortwo, its 80bhp impressive for one so small, and less burdened than it might have been with only 815kg to shove along.

The Roadster benefited from Smart’s appealingly distinct cabin furnishing schemes too, chunks of its dashboard sheathed with non-reflective cloth. Much of it was grey, but there were multiple shades of the stuff and you could give the interior ambience a cheerfully spectacular lift by specifying orange cloth. And like the Fortwo’s, the Roadster’s instrument pods were so shapely that you wanted to pick them up.

In fact, the entire car was so shapely that you wanted to pick one up and take it home. Especially if it was the oddly named Roadster Coupé version, with its pertly curving fastback rump. The standard Roadster, this sadly the more common version, had a flat rear deck and a conventional boot, and looked more pick-up than convertible because it had B-pillars and a targa roof, like the Coupé. This electric roll-back fabric slice instantly opened the cabin to the sky, and if you stirred yourself, you could get out, remove the side panels, lock them into their under-bonnet slots and generate a real, windows-down breeze.

So with all this temptation, how to overcome those disappointing pauses? For the transmission, do your shifting manually. Then you’ll know when the pause is coming, just as you do in a car with a clutch. An optional sports wheel with paddles eases the process, and you can mitigate the jerks with some fancy (right) footwork. 

The dulled steering? There’s less you can do about that, but you soon adapt, and you’ll certainly enjoy the Roadster’s low centre of gravity, unwillingness to roll and grippy grip. Which, up to a point, gets you around the ESP interference.

Above all – and your reporter knows this, because his wife has one – this Smart is still great fun. It’s surprisingly brisk, comfortable, reasonably practical and not too noisy, the sounds emanating from behind in any case throbbily intriguing. Despite its flaws, the concept car-ish Roadster is sure to become a classic, especially as there aren’t huge numbers. Production ended after only three years and 43,400 units, sales undermined by the aforementioned issues, high pricing (for its size if not sophistication) and warranty costs that were alleged to reach €3000 per car. Water leaks were one reason.

Right now, around £2000 nets you the cheapest decent Roadster, which isn’t much for the resulting entertainment. And at the top end, £6000 will get you a low-mileage, hard-riding 100bhp Brabus, or a mint 80bhp survivor, a price that confirms their creeping desirability.

BYD is going after the Land Rover Defender in the UK with the new B5 – a premium plug-in hybrid 4x4 with competitive off-road stats and supercar levels of power.

Launched in China last year as the Bao 5, the Defender 110 rival has made its UK debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed ahead of a showroom launch early next year.

It is one of three models from BYD's new SUV sub-brand Fangchengbao, but will be badged Denza in the UK and positioned as a sibling to that premium brand's Z9 GT shooting brake - also headed to the UK.

Denza was founded in 2010 as a joint venture between BYD and Mercedes-Benz but is wholly owned by the Chinese firm.

The move to import the B5 confirms Autocar's previous report that BYD would launch its Fangchengbao cars here in a bid to diversify its powertrain offering and tap into new market segments.

The company's president, Stella Li, told Autocar at last year's Festival of Speed that she predicted the SUVs "will be very popular in the UK".

“In the UK, the roads are narrow but we love these big SUV off-road cars, so Fangchengbao will be here,” she said, referencing the popularity of large premium SUVs in this market, a sector in which BYD has until now been absent.

The company has not confirmed any specification details for the B5, but it is expected to be largely unchanged from the car in China, which uses a 'DMO Super-Hybrid Off-Road' ladder-frame platform and takes its power from a plug-in hybrid system centre around a 1.5-litre turbo engine with an electric motor on each axle.

The system pumps out up to 677bhp and 561lb ft - more than any Defender, including the new V8 Octa.

Meanwhile, a sizeable 31.8kWh battery (which serves as a structural element) supplies enough power for a claimed EV range of up to 78 miles on China's CLTC cycle - though that's likely to be nearer 50 miles in practice.

The B5 forms part of BYD's push to dramatically increase its hybrid car offering in the face of wavering EV uptake in Europe. The core BYD line-up is set to be boosted next year with the arrival of the Seal 06, a plug-in hybrid saloon/estate in the mould of the BMW 3 Series.

The Denza Z9 GT will also be available as a PHEV with a "colossal" combined range, or with pure-electric power.

Also starring on BYD's stand at Goodwood will be Denza's new D9 MPV, a "business-class" people carrier in the mould of the Lexus LM.