Renault Avantime dimensions

The Renault Avantime was a Coupé/mpv automobile marketed by the French maker Renault (though in fact developed and built by the French maker Matra) between 2001 and 2003. Despite, or perhaps because of, its radical and original layout, it suffered from very poor sales and was discontinued after only two years of production.

The Renault Avantime was developed and designed in-house by Renault affiliate Matra, who were given the chance to layout a new upmarket Renault in exchange for transferring layout and production of the Renault Espace (another Matra design) to Renault themselves. The eventual Renault Avantime layout by Patrick Le Quement was tailored to provide the luxury and convenience 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 vehicle into production, partly as a result of the work required in getting the pillarless layout up to the required security standards. The vehicle's name comes from the French word "avant" meaning ahead, and the English word "time", thus inferring that the vehicle was ahead of its time (the vehicle's name is tailored to be pronounced using the English pronunciation of "time", and not the French pronunciation as in "centime"). The vehicle had only 2 doors, which were very big to enable simple access to the two back seatings, and hinged in a original way so they could be opened in relatively small spaces, such as vehicle parks. Renault's 24 valve, 250 hp (186 Kw) 3. 0L V6 motor was coupled to a 6-speed transmission.

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 Renault Avantime's sales were extremely poor (and did not move out of double digits in many countries). The car's fortunes were not helped by the introduction of the Renault Vel Satis (another big, quirky, upmarket Renault) at virtually exactly the same time. When Matra decided to pull out of the auto production enterprise in 2003 (partly as a result of the financial loss incurred by the poor sales of the Renault Avantime), Renault chose to discontinue the Renault Avantime rather than move its production elsewhere. Only 8545, were built from 2001 to 2003.