O REALITY RENAULT AVANTIME
Coupéspace was nine tenths of a production car, having had extensive input from Patrick Le Quément, the visionary Renault head of design who had already created the original Twingo and Mégane.
The Espace construction methods – in effect, a plastic body on top of a steel chassis – meant that Le Quément and his team didn’t have to play around too much with the Coupéspace to create the production model, called Avantime, which appeared two years after the concept.
Extensive strengthening meant that there was no need to introduce a B-pillar. The huge glasshouse remained, along with a panoramic roof that made the cabin feel even more spacious. But Renault did have to come up with a novel solution for the enormous doors, so it engineered an intricate double-hinge system that moved them outwards as well as forwards.
Sadly for Matra, the Avantime lived up to its badge by being ahead of its time. In fact, it was a step too far for customers, many of whom were starting to buy into the emerging trend of SUVs, cars that still offered plenty of practicality without screaming about their owner requiring it.
Sales were pitiful, and since Matra had already lost the production contract for the regular Espace, it decided to kill off the Avantime itself after just three years of production, with fewer than 9,000 units having been produced. As a final kick in the teeth, those complex hinges struggled to cope with the weight of the huge doors, so ‘Avantime sag’ became a key phrase for anyone looking at a used example.
Within weeks of the Avantime’s demise, the Romorantin factory that built it was closed, and Matra itself went on to be acquired by the world-famous Italian design house Pininfarina less than six months later.
The Espace survived; it’s still sold in continental Europe, having adopted a more rakish look that’s halfMPV, half-SUV. But the genre that it pioneered is unlikely to ever reach the same heights again. If you ever want proof of how popular MPVs once were, just look at the Avantime and remember that at the end of the nineties, someone considered it an idea worthy
of being turned from concept to reality.