Who would have thought that 60 years after its debut the Renault 4L could have become a flying car. Probably no one, not even its creators at the Losanga headquarters. Yet in 2021 the iconic French car that this year celebrates its sixtieth anniversary was the protagonist of a project that transformed it into a car of the future thanks to the collaboration between the French car manufacturer and the design firm TheArsenale. Thus was born the AIR4L, a flying showcar that will be presented to the public from Monday 29 November until the end of the year in the heart of Paris, at the Renault Atelier on the Champs Élysées, together with other historic versions of the Renault 4.
The original Renault 4 was a simple, efficient and versatile vehicle, produced between 1961 and 1992. A “blue-jeans” car, as the former Renault Group executive Pierre Dreyfus described it. A true icon at the service of families, professional operators, but also of the Gendarmerie and the Post Office. It has also helped several generations of young drivers familiarize themselves with the roads. Its values and qualities convinced TheArsenale to collaborate with Renault to reinvent the 4L and make it take the invisible highways that wind over our heads.
Renault has collaborated with TheArsenale on this one-of-a-kind project and the result is unprecedented. AIR4 is a symbol of independence and freedom, to respond to the problem of traffic, the impasse towards which we are heading and the free space in the sky. AIR4 makes air the path of the future. In terms of design, AIR4 is the result of the reinterpretation of the retro icon conceived by TheArsenale, far from the classic codes of modern cars. The vehicle, completely designed in carbon fiber, maintains the same lines and volumes as the original 4L while offering new dynamic performances. The stiffness has been completely revised to include new concepts such as thrust and climb, work that required hours of calculations and tests. Using generative design techniques and artificial intelligence, TheArsenale engineers were able to test several terabytes of data to improve and refine the designers’ ideas, even before doing the first tests in the real world. From a technical point of view, AIR4 is powered by 22,000 amp-hour lithium-polymer batteries, which generate a total power of approximately 90,000 mAh. The vehicle can reach a maximum horizontal speed of 26 m / s with an inclination of 45 ° during flight and a maximum inclination of 70 °. It can fly up to 700 meters high with a take-off speed of 14 m / s, limited to 4 m / s for safety reasons, and a landing speed of 3 m / s. Finally, the AIR4 offers a maximum vector thrust of 380 kg, which is 95 kg per propeller.
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