There’s more to the chic Renault 5 than its baguette holder and customizable gear shifter shaped like a lipstick holder. The French marque is pulling out all the stops to make the R5’s revival even more interesting while earning some extra money on the side. The company’s online shop is already chock-full of branded merchandise, and some items are cool as hell.
The one that initially caught our attention was the cassette player, which was all the rage when the previous-generation Renault 5 was around. Made from aluminum and fitted with headphone and microphone jacks, the Player5 Portable Cassette Player has Bluetooth and a play/record function. The rechargeable battery lasts for up to 10 hours and Renault throws in a blank 60-minute cassette. Oh, you also get a pencil to rewind the tape – which is a sentence that only makes sense if you’re past a certain age. All for €180, which works out to about $195 at current exchange rates.
What else? You can buy a nifty slot car race track that’s 3.8 meters (nearly 150 inches) long. It comes bundled with 1:43 scale models of the 2021 Renault 5 prototype that came before the production version and the rad Turbo 3E concept. Both have working headlights and a turbo function with a dedicated button on the controllers. It’ll set you back €115 ($125).
Another product that we found interesting is a €200 ($217) helmet with built-in brake light and turn signals. Alternatively, you could go for a €110 ($119) set of three stainless steel balls to play a game of pétanque. Per Wikipedia:
“Players or teams play their boules/balls towards a target ball. In pétanque, the objective is to score points by having boules closer to the target than the opponent after all boules have been thrown. This is achieved by throwing or rolling boules closer to the small target ball, officially called a jack, or by hitting the opponents’ boules away from the target, while standing inside a circle with both feet on the ground.”
Aside from miscellaneous items such as beanies, sweaters, socks, skateboards, pencils, pedal cars, and scale models of various sizes, there are a few pricey goodies. You can spend a cool €2,700 ($2,930) on a bicycle or €3,000 ($3,250) on a surfboard. Reach deeper into your pockets for a foosball table that costs a whopping €4,200 ($4,500). It’s made by French football table manufacturer Bonzini and weighs 176 pounds (80 kilograms).
As for the car itself, Renault has said the reborn 5 will kick off at around €25,000 ($27,000). A more expensive hot hatch derivative will follow later this year when Alpine is going to introduce the A290.