Renault Piccola
The Renault Piccola was a remarkable city-car prototype unveiled in 1982, created by Marcello Gandini shortly after he left Bertone.
Invited to Renault by Robert Opron to work on the second-generation Renault 5 (Supercinq), Gandini also introduced his own proposal for a simple, low-cost urban vehicle.
True to its name—Piccola, meaning “small” in Italian—the concept was a lightweight, plastic-bodied city car delivered to Renault’s design studios disassembled in crates, highlighting a modular construction philosophy.
During a demonstration that impressed Renault executives, the Piccola was fully assembled in just half an hour using only basic tools, clearly illustrating the idea’s efficiency and production potential.
Renault quickly acquired the rights, hoping it could help revive the company’s stalled VBG (Véhicules Bas de Gamme) project, which aimed to replace the venerable Renault 4 with an inexpensive and easy-to-manufacture successor.
The Piccola never reached the factory floor, but it left a mark on Renault’s approach to minimal-cost engineering and stands as an early example of flat-pack automotive thinking—a concept that would return in various new forms decades later.
