At Renault, fashions pass but iconic names remain. After Mégane, Scénic and now Espace, the Diamond manufacturer will come out of the boxes with the surname Avantime. It will be up to the coupé version of the Austal (DHN) family to wink at the coupéspace.
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The coupé version of the Austral (code DHN) will be called Avantime. Like the space coupe released in the early 2000s. He was surprised in Normandy in March in camouflage.
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[Mis à jour le 02/04/23] Some of our readers understood it well, it was an April Fool’s joke. If the characteristics of the future Austral coupé are true, Renault has no plans to reuse the Avantime name. On the other hand, other avenues are being studied. See you soon on L’argus.fr.
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Renault seems very attached to the names of its products. The brand has chosen the surname Espace to baptize the new long version (up to 7 seats) of its Austral SUV. And it has already confirmed the return of the R5 and 4L to the catalog in 2024 and 2025, while the Scénic will be transformed into a compact electric SUV in early 2024. Soon, it’s another name that will make a big comeback in the range: Avantime.
Launched in the early 2000s, the Avantime was a very atypical vehicle, the concept of which was proposed by Matra and the design reworked by Thierry Metroz, now head of style at DS. It was aptly named “coupéspace” since it was a mixture of minivan and coupé. But its high prices, its perfectible quality of construction, its lack of practicality (only two doors) and other problems related to the design of the vehicle were right of its success. The closure of the Matra factory in Romorantin, where the vehicle was produced, signed its death warrant. “Avantime’s career ended in a bit of a fishtail”, recalls a former Renault salesman. In the end, less than 9,000 units were manufactured from 2001 to 2003. However, more than twenty years later, the model has retained a certain sympathy with car enthusiasts due to its concept.
From minivan-coupé to SUV-coupé
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The launch of the Avantime was accompanied by a new slogan: “Renault creator of automobiles”. With the second generation, the brand would like to rediscover this audacity.
Surely too avant-garde for the time, the Avantime will therefore be reborn from its ashes in 2024 and will point the tip of its nose in 2023. A muzzle which will moreover, according to our sources, be very different from the Austral/Space duo . And for good reason, it was Gilles Vidal, a defector from Peugeot, who led this project with the Renault design team. But no question for Renault to relaunch a model as atypical as it was then. “The name will be used for the brand’s future coupe SUV which will soon be unveiled”confirmed a source close to the project. “It will not replace the Arkana (restyled mid-2023), it will be a complementary, more upscale model”he recalls, speaking of a vehicle with a strong personality.
Under the hood, no gasoline V6 like the first Avantime, but electrified engines. This new model will inaugurate a 280 hp plug-in hybrid, developed on the basis of the 200 hp 1.2 full hybrid version. The latter will be associated with another electric machine on the rear axle. The Renault Avantime will be available as a 200 hp hybrid and a 280 hp plug-in hybrid. With a length of around 4.70 m, it will position itself above the future Peugeot 3008, which will also have an SUV-coupé silhouette, and will play the challengers against the Audi Q5 Sportback, BMW X4 or Mercedes GLC coupé. Once again, Renault will be “before its time” because it will be the first generalist manufacturer to interfere in the segment of large SUV-coupes, the preserve of premium brands.
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