Renault Avantime

The Renault Avantime is a car that Renault marketed and Matra designed and built between 2001 and 2003. Styled by Patrick Le Quément, it was a one-box design without B-pillars that mixed the space of an estate or MPV with the style of a 2+2 coupé, and Renault described it as a grand tourer. It had four seats, two long doors with a double kinematic hinge to ease rear entry, an aluminium greenhouse structure and a full panoramic sunroof. It borrowed the space frame of the first generation Espace and was offered with a 2.0 litre turbo engine, a 3.0 litre V6 and a 2.2 litre dCi turbodiesel. It was shown in concept form in February 1999 and its sales were poor; when Matra left car production in 2003 Renault ended it, after 8,557 had been built, one of the worst-selling cars of all time.