A west London dealer has brought the latest generation Renault Twingo city car to the capital for the first time. Renault London West is importing left-hand drive versions of the Twingo from Germany. But Renault UK says it has no plans to officially sell the cars through its franchised network.

Cars have been converted to UK specification and are registered as such with the DVLA, which also provides a certificate of conformity. That means converting speedos from kilometres per hour to miles per hour and ordering bespoke headlights for driving on the left.

The eight cars in stock – all high-specification, low mileage examples of the 3.5-metre car – have attracted strong interest from prospects. All have air conditioning while some are equipped with sat-nav and a quick-shift sequential gearbox.

Renault London West is planning to import and convert as many cars – priced from £5,990 – as it can to meet consumer demand. Average turnaround from order to forecourt is two weeks with paperwork costing about £200.

Geoff Chung, senior sales executive, says: “This is an opportunity for Britain's motorists to drive the car that Renault UK never imported.”

The news comes after Renault chief executive Louis Schweitzer ruled out exporting an all-new model costing Euro 5,000 (£3,363) to UK showrooms. He says the car, similar in size to the Megane, will debut at the autumn Paris motor show. It will be built by Renault subsidiary Dacia in Romania and is due to go on sale in Romania and other Eastern Europe countries, as well as Morocco, Russia and Iran.

Renault wants to reach annual volumes of 700,000 units of the so-far unnamed range by 2010.