Dacia’s Hipster Concept Is a Minimalist Take on the Electric Car
Built to be light, compact, and usable, the concept focuses on what drivers actually need instead of tech or size.By Natalie NeffPublished: Oct 06, 2025 7:44 AM EDT
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VIEW GALLERYDacia
Dacia has unveiled the Hipster Concept, a compact electric city car that contrasts with the general bigger, heavier, and more expensive EV landscape.
The company calls it a rethink of what’s “essential” in electric mobility, a vehicle designed around practicality and cost.
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At just three meters long, the Hipster Concept is shorter than a Mini Cooper but still fits four seats and a trunk that can expand to almost 18 cu-ft. It’s 20% lighter than Dacia’s existing Spring EV and is designed to use fewer materials and less energy to build. Dacia says that approach could cut the car’s carbon footprint in half compared with current electric models.Dacia
The exterior is straightforward and functional, with near-vertical sides and a blocky stance. The front is upright, while the rear hatch spans the car’s full width for easy loading. There are a few clever touches—door straps instead of handles, recycled-plastic side panels, and a single body color with minimal painted parts to reduce cost and complexity.
Inside, the Hipster Concept follows the same logic. The design is boxy but spacious, with lightweight mesh seats, sliding windows, and a front bench.Dacia
The cabin is built around Dacia’s “YouClip” modular system, allowing owners to attach accessories like cup holders, lamps, or a Bluetooth speaker. In keeping with the brand’s bring-your-own-device approach, a smartphone acts as both the key and infotainment system when docked in the dashboard.
The Hipster Concept doesn’t yet preview a production model, but it signals where Dacia thinks the electric market should go. It’s just too bad the US will miss out if it does go to production, as we do with so many of these practical—and especially affordable—small EVs.
But for a couple of sketchy, short-lived gigs right out of college, Natalie Neff has had the good fortune to spend the entirety of her professional life around cars. A 2017 Honda Ridgeline, 1972 VW Beetle, 1999 Ducati Monster and a well-loved purple-and-white five-speed Schwinn currently call her garage home.
Theon Design’s Latest 964 911 Cracks the 100-HP/Liter Barrier
That’s 407 hp from 3.8 liters in a carbon-fiber-bodied car that weighs 2,420 pounds wet!By Mark VaughnPublished: Oct 03, 2025 3:00 AM EDTSave Article
VIEW GALLERYTheon Design
- Theon Design, a Porsche restoration specialist based in the UK, has a new commission, an Ice Green 964 911 making 407 hp from just 3.8 liters of flat-six.
- As with other Theon Design cars, this one was fully rebuilt from the chassis out.
- No price was given, but previous commissions started at $590,000.
We drove a Theon Design Porsche 911 earlier this year and had a great time. Now the UK-based re-imaginer of the 964 911 has a new commission that breaks the 100-hp-per-liter barrier. We don’t have a drive report for you, but the specs suggest the right-hand-drive car will be quite a thrill for its new Brit owner.
The heart of the car is a comprehensively overhauled naturally aspirated, air-cooled 3.8-liter engine, what Theon calls “a flat-six marvel” that produces 407 bhp at 7,600 rpm as well as a “stout” 293 lb-ft of torque, giving the 1,150-kilogram (2,420 pounds wet) machine “effortless in-gear performance.”
“This potent, wonderfully free-revving powerplant incorporates advanced drive-by-wire throttle technology and Theon’s in-house-developed switchable engine mapping system, offering four distinct driving modes from the relaxed, detuned Town setting through to Race mode, which offers full power and instant throttle response,” Theon says.
VIEW GALLERYTheon Design
The source of the 407 hp. Note the independent throttle bodies.
The suspension is set up less for curb-bashing racetrack dominance than it is for grand touring, “calibrated with British roads specifically in mind.” The springs are “more relaxed,” Theon says, calibrated to deliver exceptional control even on the roughest roads.
As with the other 16 Theon Design commissions built so far in the company’s eight years in business, this one began with a donor 964 911. Theon doesn’t say what year the donor car was, but Porsche made the 964 from 1988 to ’94.
The car was stripped to bare metal, 3D scanned, and rebuilt from the ground up with full seam welding, thus significantly increasing torsional rigidity and structural strength, Theon says. Over that reinforced platform was laid Theon’s signature lightweight carbon-fiber bodywork. With 407 hp, that gives the car a power-to-weight ratio of less than six pounds for every pony to push around—true supercar territory.
Other Such Creations
- The Porsche 964, as reimagined by Singer
- A Next-Level Porsche 911 from Gunther Werks
- First drive: LA Workshop 5001 makes old Porsche 911s even more fun
The commission rides on 18-inch Fuchs-style wheels wrapped in Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires measuring 235/40ZR-18 front and 275/35ZR-18 rear. They’ve been widened by the same percentage front and rear vis-à-vis the original 964, Theon says, to “amplify” the level of grip but not alter the balance.
Those are stopped by a Porsche 993 RS brake setup with distinctive red calipers, providing “exceptional stopping power, pedal feel, and response.” The discs are nestled behind the bespoke 18-inch wheels.
VIEW GALLERYTheon Designs
Hey! The steering wheel’s on the wrong side!
Inside is Phantom Black leather with contrasting Ice Green stitching that matches the exterior paint scheme. Driver and passenger ride in Recaro CS seats with carbon-fiber backs and woven centers. All vents, door handles, and control knobs are machined billet aluminum. Even the gauge cluster is specific to Theon. An Alpine HDS-990 head unit appears magically as necessary from under the dash and feeds wattage to six speakers.
If you really want to see this car, fly to the UK now. It will be revealed this weekend at the thrice-annual Bicester Motion Scramble held in Oxfordshire, not far from Theon Design’s headquarters. The theme of this particular Scramble is “Reboots and Restomods,” entirely appropriate for this particular car. The location is an old World War II airfield once used for bomber training. This site hosted a Luftgekuhlt in 2018.
Flights are cheap. And what else were you going to do this weekend?
Mark Vaughn grew up in a Ford family and spent many hours holding a trouble light over a straight-six miraculously fed by a single-barrel carburetor while his father cursed the Blue Oval, all its products and everyone who ever worked there. This was his introduction to objective automotive criticism. He started writing for City News Service in Los Angeles, then moved to Europe and became editor of a car magazine called, creatively, Auto. He decided Auto should cover Formula 1, sports prototypes and touring cars—no one stopped him! From there he interviewed with Autoweek at the 1989 Frankfurt motor show and has been with us ever since.
