New cars aren’t enough fun. More baguette holders, please

Since installing the official baguette holder accessory in the Renault 4 I’ve been driving for the last few months, I’ve used it for its intended purpose as a long loaf receptacle twice. And in each instance, it was to take a photo. 

I’ve probably used it more to house drink bottles, because the R4’s cupholder arrangement is pretty rubbish. At £138, the baguette holder is expensive, and where it clips to the centre console means it encroaches on the passenger footwell space.

I guess it makes less sense in the UK, where if you make a baguette purchase at all, it’s more likely to be part of a big supermarket shop, tucked away in a big bag full of other items that you’ve lobbed in the boot. Or in my case, because I’m lazy, dropped off with the home shopping delivery. You’re less likely to have a delightful, rustic boulangerie just down the road here than you are across the channel. 

I still love that baguette holder, though. I would recommend that Auto Express picture editor, Dawn Grant, gets one in the R4 she’s currently running, and the same goes for anyone else who has a 4. Or indeed the 5, which the holder accessory is compatible with too. I love it not because of its limited utility, but because of what it represents: a bit of fun.

This, I think, is sorely missing in current cars, but Renault is doing a great job of rectifying the problem. For both the R4 and R5, you can also get fun 3D-printed covers for the central storage bin, including one featuring a representation of the classic Renault 4. There’s also a range of covers for the drive selector stalk, one of which features the French flag, just in case you’ve already got the baguette holder and fancy doubling down on the Gallic pride. They’re cheap, too, at £30 a pop. 

All of this matters, because these little details will brighten your mood no end as you climb aboard for the morning commute on a dark, miserable winter’s morning. Yes, some cars might do that in the way they drive, but for the average motorist, I think something silly like a baguette holder or a fun 3D-printed trim piece will do the job more successfully. Clever, fun design elements like this can even gain cars a bit of a cult following, protecting their value and making them easier to sell when it’s time to move on.

To be fair, adding that fun element to car designs has been done before, the original BMW MINI was a fine example but brands seem to have lost their way until very recently. Right now, it does feel as though other manufacturers are getting better at filling the fun vacuum, along with Renault. The Fiat Grande Panda’s interior, for example, is a really fun place to be with its funky use of colours and materials – it’s not like you often find bamboo fibres used to make cabin trim.

The Citroen 2CV concept gives us something to look forward to as well. It’ll inevitably be toned down for production, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing (the fairy lights hanging from the ceiling are perhaps a bit much), but I really hope its sense of fun is retained. And in a somewhat similar vein to the R4’s baguette holder, the centre console is actually a removable picnic basket. 

Little ‘Easter Eggs’ can work well, too, and don’t exactly require a lot of effort on the part of the manufacturer. On a Citroen C3 Aircross you’ll see an image of the Eiffel Tower worked into the heating elements of the rear side windows, for example, and just so we don’t spend too long talking about French things, Jeep models have some pretty neat reference to the grille slats of the original Willys Jeep. 

For established manufacturers, all of this stuff is becoming more important than ever. It’s difficult to compete with the influx of Chinese brands when it comes to value for money, but when so many of the new entrants to the market have the feel of appliances, fun little touches set the likes of the Renault 4 apart. 

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