The first Renault Scenic, a groundbreaking concept that started a genre.
The Espace created a whole new market segment in Europe in 1984. By scaling the MPV down for the average family, Renault almost inadvertently did it again with the Mégane Scénic in the 1990s.
Renault should have known it was on to a good thing when orders for the Mégane Scénic began in advance of its launch. Having seen great success with its pioneering MPV the Espace, in 1996 the company spied an unoccupied niche for a smaller, five-seater family car with adaptable seating. The result was the Scénic, sales of which quickly surged way ahead of predictions. A couple of years later Renault’s design supremo Patrick Le Quément was talking up the mini MPV as the fivedoor hatchback of the future.
Instead of scaling down the Espace – which by 1996 was in its third generation – to create a compact version, Renault did the opposite and developed it as part of that year’s Mégane range. This was a set of FWD models based on the proven chassis of the Renault 19. Taller than its saloon, estate or coupé brethren, visually the Scénic was quite fun – owing a great deal to a former Le Quément commission, 1993’s madcap and miniscule Renault Twingo. The nose featured a raked bonnet which tapered sharply between sloping headlamps, the sides boasted good proportions and deep glass, while the roofline dipped towards a steep tailgate and toy like, googly- eye rear lamp clusters. This was far from the radical statement of the first-generation Espace, but it was also quite good-looking and not intimidatingly large. Visual appeal to the school-run generation of the time was guaranteed.
While the Espace had a rather futuristic interior, the Scénic was much more subdued. It had a pretty normal dashboard, although the seats could come in a harlequin array of variouslycoloured velours. These seats could all slide and tilt individually, and the rears could be removed as required. Fold-up tables on the backs of the front seats provided somewhere for passengers to rest drinks, toys and books, as if they were on a budget flight.
Rather predictably, the British motoring press dismissed the Scénic as dull-but-worthy. Contemporary reviewers applauded its practicality and surprising refinement, but couldn’t understand why
anyone would actually want to buy one. Car writers were fed on a steady diet of much more exciting test cars, so in some ways this reaction is unsurprising, but the rest of the great British public rarely got the opportunity to step from a Renault into a Porsche and back again. Buoyed by the Scénic’s award of Car of the Year in 1997, family men and women ignored the journalists and went to Renault dealers in droves. They continued to do so throughout the model’s production life, despite a 1999 nose and rear lamp restyle that robbed the Scénic of its distinctive looks.
Le Quément had every right to be optimistic about the automotive niche Renault had created. This was a market sector judged at the time to prioritise practicality over thrills. Consequently the entire initial Mégane range used a simple range of proven power plants which delivered perfectly adequate performance. The 1.6 and 2.0-litre, eight-valve petrol units produced 90 and 115bhp respectively, the first giving a 0- 60mph canter of 13.3 seconds and the second a more-sprightly 10.7 second hustle. The late 1990s saw the UK really wake up to modern turbo diesel-powered motoring, so the thoroughly competent 100bhp 1.9dTi unit proved a popular choice.
While the 1999 facelift resulted in a blander-looking Scénic, it was accompanied by a revised range of engines. In keeping with the prevalent practice of the time, these were 16-valve petrol units in 1.4, 1.6, 1.8 and 2.0-litre sizes. The 1.9-litre turbo-diesel option remained, naturally. All these engines provided perfectly acceptable performance and fuel economy. The multivalve motors also brought an improvement in refinement. Two transmission options were available – a five-speed manual and a four-speed automatic. Neither the French nor the British had yet embraced automatic shifting with today’s enthusiasm, so most Scénics come equipped with the manual ‘box. This is a good thing, because this is a very decent, simple and durable unit, but the automatic can prove problematic in long-term use.
Road testers at the time were impressed by how normal the Scénic felt to drive, despite its extra height. This shouldn’t really have been a huge surprise, as although it was a fresh concept, this small MPV was just a variant of a perfectly ordinary French hatchback. What was unique about it was the headroom, the slightly elevated driving position and the proliferation of well thoughtout storage options. Up to this point, lockers hidden under the floor mats had been pretty much the province of drug runners, but the Scénic made such spaces available for your kids to stuff toys and books.
This was the key to the Mégane Scénic’s success, really – it created a new motoring niche without being revolutionary. The history of French automobile design is littered with boldness and ground breaking innovation, but here was a car that did everything a medium-sized family motor was supposed to do, with just a little more airspace, versatility and a lot of places to put stuff. It drove nicely, performed pretty well and handled neatly. The only people with any reason to dislike this car were valeters. One imagines that thoroughly cleaning an example in daily use by a family of five could prove a fairly unpleasant experience.
For all these reasons, the Scénic is still a decent car to own 24 years after it came to the UK. French cars have a reputation for fragility that is not always deserved. Practical, simple models do their job well, and can do it for decades if serviced regularly. However, the Scénic is now very cheap indeed – even very tidy examples cost less than £1500. This is the zone where even a relatively slight mechanical problem can render a car non-viable. Once a very common sight on British roads, this Renault becomes rarer by the day as minor MoT failures cause cars to be scrapped.
Now, therefore, is the ideal time to seek out a well-loved, tidy example for very little money. There are of course other cheap mini MPVs to choose from nowadays. In the wake of the Scénic came similar offerings from Citroën, Vauxhall and others, but the discerning family man or woman wishing to combine low-budget, practical transport with a sense of motoring history should look no further than Le Quément’s versatile brainchild. Sure, a Picasso or a Zafira will shift people for similar cost, but they are little more than also-rans. The Mégane Scénic did it first, and did it well. As a result it has earned something the others will never have – something best expressed by a French word, as it happens. What this inadvertently innovative vehicle possesses, as well as headroom and adaptable seating, is cachet.