Renault will launch a new brand dedicated to sports models: Renaultsport

British at Autocar announced Friday that Renault is preparing to make a very interesting move on the European market: the launch of a new brand tht would market the future sport models of the French.

The brand will be called Renaultsport, as the parent-brand gives up the idea of developing sports cars under the Alpine brand. The reason: the market already knows that Renault Sport is dealing with the brand’s successful hot-hatch, so adding this name to the sports models wouldn’t be difficult for the French.

According to information published by Autocar, the first model of the new brand will be the series version of the acclaimed concept DeZir, which launched its world premiere last year at the Paris Motor Show. Even though nothing is officially confirmed so far, development plans arranged by Renault are already advanced.

Renault product manager Beatrice Foucher told Autocar, “Renaultsport is key to Renault’s strategy. It already has excellent loyalty and is perceived by some owners as a brand in its own right, and we can develop that further. “We will continue working on derivative versions of the Mégane, for example, because that’s a terrific car and excellent for us. But we also need specific models only for Renaultsport. We have started working on that; we’re thinking of small volumes, where there are good business models.”

According to insiders at Renault, the future series model based on DeZir will be a cabriolet and will cost around 35,000 euros. It will have either the Megane RS (2.0 250 hp) or the Clio RS (2.0 to 200 hp) engine under the hood, depending on what the French engineers will decide.