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Renault Avantime
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The Renault Avantime was a coupé automobile marketed by the French manufacturer Renault (though in fact designed and built by the French manufacturer Matra) between 2001 and 2003. The car, which had a radical and unique design, suffered from very poor sales and was discontinued after only two years of production.
Avantime was designed and developed in-house by Renault affiliate Matra, who were given the chance to design a new upmarket Renault in exchange for transferring design and production of the Renault Espace (another Matra design) to Renault themselves.
The Matra production lines were very process specific, as they allowed the production of galvanized steel car bodies that were fitted with composite panels.
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Encyclopedia
The Renault Avantime was a coupé automobile marketed by the French manufacturer Renault (though in fact designed and built by the French manufacturer Matra) between 2001 and 2003. The car, which had a radical and unique design, suffered from very poor sales and was discontinued after only two years of production.
Industrial concerns at Matra
The Avantime was designed and developed in-house by Renault affiliate Matra, who were given the chance to design a new upmarket Renault in exchange for transferring design and production of the Renault Espace (another Matra design) to Renault themselves.
The Matra production lines were very process specific, as they allowed the production of galvanized steel car bodies that were fitted with composite panels. This peculiar design, initiated with the Matra Murena in the 1980s, was carried on the first generations of the Renault Espace, a groundbreaking and highly successful MPV, at the beginning of the 1980 decade.
The fourth generation Renault Espace was set to be built with the classic all metal architecture of other high end Renaults like the Laguna and the Vel Satis, and was produced on the same production lines. Renault's industrial rationalization left Matra with no production activity, and the Avantime was developed as a way to continue exploiting the specific production facilities of Matra in Romorantin.
As a consequence, the Renault Avantime still had the architecture with a galvanized body with composite panels like the first generation Renault Espace MPVs. This design may have led to quality concerns for a high end vehicle (see the body panel adjustment concerns for the Saturn S and L-series vehicles, built on the same principle).
Model Launch
The eventual Avantime design by Patrick Le Quement was intended to offer the luxury and comfort of a coupe with the style and flexibility of an Espace-type MPV, and was first shown in 1999 in concept form at the Geneva Auto Show. However, it took two more years to get the car into production, partly as a result of the work required in getting the pillarless design up to the required safety standards. The vehicle's name comes from the French word "Avant" meaning ahead, and the English word "Time", thus inferring that the car was ahead of its time (the vehicle's name is intended to be pronounced using the English pronunciation of "time", and not the French pronunciation as in "centime"). The car had only 2 doors, which were very large to allow easy access to the two rear seats, and hinged in a unique way so they could be opened in relatively small spaces, such as car parks. Renault's 24 valve, 207 hp (152 kW) 3.0L V6 engine was coupled to a 6-speed transmission.
Poor public reception
Though other ambitious Renault designs in the first few years of the 21st century like the Mégane and Laguna were quite well-received and successful, the Avantime's sales were extremely poor (and did not move out of double digits in many countries), and today the car is considered to be a massive flop. The car's fortunes were not helped by the introduction of the Renault Vel Satis (another large, quirky, upmarket Renault) at virtually exactly the same time. When Matra decided to pull out of the automotive production business in 2003 (partly as a result of the financial loss incurred by the poor sales of the Avantime), Renault chose to discontinue the Avantime rather than move its production elsewhere. Only 8,545 were built from 2001 to 2003.
In 2008, the Avantime was featured on the British motoring show Top Gear, where the presenters performance modified a used Avantime, attempting to lap the test track faster than an Mitsubishi Evo X. The Avantime was recognized as one of the few cars that all three presenters liked (along with Ford Mondeo and Subaru Legacy).
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