Renault 4 review

It doesn't drive quite like the Renault 5, but its character is similar. The suspension is a little calmer than the 5's, while the steering remains quickish and accurate, working in harmony with the suspension to feed you smoothly into and through a bend.

To begin with that steering feels remote, but push the cornering effort harder and sensory messages start to come up from the tyres. Messages of the sophisticated multi-link rear suspension keeping everything nicely precise and balanced front to rear. It’s properly enjoyable and serves you with a smile.

In town or on tight rural lanes, you might want to set up a personal drive mode that softens the initial accelerator response. That makes it smoother to drive in traffic. It also lets you meter out the torque gently from a corner, not that you’ll be wheelspinning much.

Is it comfy?

Not unexpectedly, that firm-ish setup translates into a somewhat busy ride. But it's not harsh or distracting, and shrugs off big bumps and dips extremely well. The tyres and suspension are also quiet, which helps you ignore the road-level perturbations and wind noise at higher speeds. And bumps don't knock you off line. You just point and steer.

Power is more than enough for suburbs and B-roads, and there’s just enough to avoid being bullied on the motorway. The 0-62mph time of 8.2 seconds is the sort of thing that'd be considered lively in a sub-£30k petrol family car: there's no particular need for it to be quicker.

The brakes are pretty sensitive at low speed, but in solid stops they're reassuring and consistent. There are four levels of regen – including a one-pedal mode – and you’ll quickly get into the habit of flicking away at the paddles to gently slow the car without the brake pedal.

The R4 is just 1.8 metres across the body and under 4.2m long, and sure enough feels handy when threading down narrow streets and lanes. It'll even tow a 750kg trailer.

Good news if you only want to holiday within an hour’s radius of your own bed.

Does the range hold up?

Expect 200-220 miles range; around 4.0 mi/kWh, obscure stats fans. And when we tested the car mid-heatwave we got close to the magic 5.0 mi/kWh at urban speeds. Inevitably those numbers will plummet in winter, but the standard heat pump and (relatively) low weight stand the R4 in good stead.

What about driver assist?

The base Evolution spec is standard cruise control and just a lane-departure warning system, while the Iconic spec comes with full adaptive cruise with lane centring. Both are pretty well calibrated.

Anyway, the R4 has a hardware switch for the driver-assist. Double-press it and you get your preferred setup. So you can pick that preferred setup just the once, never to return to the screen menu. Ideal.