Fans of Cockney-flavoured 1960s crime capers rejoice! For someone has at last produced a car in tribute to the character played by the late, great Noel Coward in 1969's The Italian Job. Not only were all of Coward's scenes actually filmed in Kilmainhaim Jail (standing in for Wormwood Scrubs) but… hang on… wait, I'm being told that I have entirely the wrong end of the stick here and the Renault Bridger is nothing to do with Mr Bridger from The Italian Job. My apologies.
While we're here, what actually is the Renault Bridger?
Ah, it's a bit of an interesting one, actually. The Bridger will be Renault's next concept car, and while the actual details are a bit thin on the ground at the moment, the single outline pencil sketch image we've seen suggests that this one might be a bit closer to production car reality than most.
Why's that?
Well, for a start, it's clearly got a spare wheel hanging off the back, and that's an odd detail to include on a concept car that has no hope of making production. Then there's the details of the car's packaging…
What's exciting about the packaging?
Renault says that the Bridger will be less than 4.0 metres long, which makes it very compact indeed, as that means it's shorter than the current Captur (4.1 metres) and the Dacia Duster (4.3 metres), yet the French car maker claims that the Bridger is small but "without compromising on interior space.” Hence, the exterior spare wheel, we suspect, by moving that outside the car, you open up a great deal of potential extra interior space.
Will this be an electric model?
That's harder to say. While Renault has scored big sales successes with the likes of the Renault 5 E-Tech and the Renault 4 E-Tech, the fact is that EV uptake in the small car segment is still relatively low, and this week Renault has already said that it's going to ramp up its hybrid car production to meet consumer demand, so it seems quite likely that this Bridger may end up being a hybrid model to take on the likes of the big-selling Toyota Yaris Cross. Indeed, Renault has also said that it wants to seriously take on Toyota as a seller of compact hybrid models, so that makes part-petrol power for the Bridger even more likely.
When will we actually get to see the Bridger?
Next week. Renault will show off the Bridger, along with lots more details of its new 'FutuREeady' plans for the next few years, on March 10th.
As well as a new model, the Bridger also represents something of a change of heart when it comes to Renault's car name strategy, as explained by Sylvia dos Santos, Head of Naming Strategy with Renault's Global Marketing Division: "With Renault Bridger, we are adding to our family of names based on English words. This one comes from the word 'bridge', with the letters 'ER' added for identification. The name Renault Bridger is part of the same approach as the name of Renault Duster. It's a powerful, robust and versatile name, ideal to identify our new urban SUV show-car and open a new page in our international offensive.”
Should we be blowing the doors off, though?
Er no. Definitely not. Mr Bridger would be most upset.