Bonjour! We’re reporting live from the 2014 Paris Mondial De’l Automobile, known to most as the Paris Motor Show. The world’s press is streaming into the Porte de Versailles as we speak but coming early and snooping around has its benefits.
We have here for you some of the world’s first live pics of the all-new Renault Espace. Renault’s press conference is still over an hour away, but the wraps were open for special previews earlier in the morning, and yours truly was chased away by the car’s minders more than once.
Anyway, the Renault Espace, one of the pioneers of the MPV genre, is now in its fifth generation, and it’s blazing trails once again. A faithful reproduction of the Initiale Paris concept from Frankfurt 2013, the production Espace boasts a crossover look in place of the traditional MPV design.
The glass area is a lot smaller than before, and the car appears raised. Renault says that the new car retains the natural light and airiness of the old car, though. We haven’t managed to verify that yet.
The new Espace will be available in five- and seven-seat forms; the showcar is the three-row version, with three individual middle row seats and a third row that split folds 50:50. The interior, as previewed by our early spyshots has a portrait-oriented colour touch-screen system on the centre stack, something that’s in fashion today. Functions are accessed via an iDrive-style knob between the gear knob and electric parking brake.
We’ll be back with more from the Renault booth, in the meantime, enjoy our preview of the preview!
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Owhh this one is a looker compared to the previous one.
As a small kid, I fell in love with the original Espace back in the mid/late 80s. It was truly the original MPV. It was sleek and VERY different from all the other econoboxes which were literally just normal vans back then. Then the next generations came, but it could not match the unique first gen. Especially disliked the last gen (4th gen). But this brand new 5th generation, has wowed me again. Like that small kid in the 80s. This is now truly a crossover: an MPV SUV hybrid. Brilliant work by Renault. Just one small minor comment, well nit picking really. The front quarter glass looks kinda Citroen-ish doesn’t it??
Hm, to me the A pillar has more of a Renault Scenic look. A bit of a swooping line.
The Espace was a really interesting MPV actually, in fact I would say the packaging ingenuity is still pretty amazing, even today. Not many MPVs had removable seats.
The only big issue that was with the Espace, at least in Asia was the cost. Renault, in the pre-Nissan days was not that smart in marketing it in the price sensitive Asia, and let’s face it, back in the day, price came first before driving pleasure, something the Estima, Serena and Odyssey and all managed pull off. They were not that exciting, not that comfortable (at least in the Serena) and pretty crappy to drive (out of experience, I had an old Serena for a while, rolls like no tomorrow and the engine is below the driver’s seat). But they sold. Very well.
Well now that Renault has Nissan, I believe if at all a RHD makes it through, with a Nissan engine and assembled in Asia itself, Renault could be on to something. This definitely looks nicer than the Japanese alternatives, and looks more exciting than the VW CrossTouran and Sharan, though the VWs are actually decent to drive, just rather boring outside.
looks expensive and handsome..really strong elegant lines
very very impressive…
Giant scrrens in the dashboard is a thing now…
http://www.renault.fr/decouvrez-renault/renault-initiale-paris/initiale-paris/
From WOW to wow
As long as its japanese under the hood then it would sell in numbers…
X-trail’s powertrain comes to mind..
Nice! But i wonder if this model still got individual air cond control..
oh my goodness, if i were an owner of car manufacturer i would really consider to offer the new designer of renault a huge amount of money for him to work for me. this guy is simply genius! he knows how to make cars look edgy and sexy at the same time.