RHD, Manual Renault Avantime

The Avantime was a strange MPV sold by Renault, but engineered and manufactured by Matra.  It is sometimes known as the vehicle that killed Matra.  Continue on to find out more!

No, this car isn’t in the US – it is in the UK, which was originally blessed with new Avantimes.  Sadly, Nissan never rebadged this for US sale, as we must say this is simultaneously one of the worst and best cars of the last couple decades.  It is clearly ugly in many ways, but one must applaud it daring to be different.  Different works for grabbing attention, but, as Matra found out, it doesn’t keep a company running all by itself.  Almost ironically, Renault’s alliance partner Nissan Europe was circling like a vulture and swooped in to occupy Matra’s Trappe offices immediately after the Avantime helped take them down.

What you get with this car is a two-door MPV with two rows of seats and an early version of a panoramic roof.  These were upscale Renaults and not at all cheap in their day, so you get a host of early 2000s luxury features.  In this case, it’s powered by a 2-liter, inline four cylinder powering the front wheels through a manual transaxle.  Others has the PRV 3.0-liter V6 or a 2.2-liter turbodiesel.

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Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, UK
£2,490

Front end is the least weird view of this MPV.  Condition appears great, though that might be fading on the plastic center caps – they look like every remaining stock B13 Sentra SE-R’s.

Would you like some straked venting?

Profile confirms that this was designed in the same era as he ill-fated Vel Satis and the not at all ill-fated Mégane II.

The rear is where things get really weird, which is also true with the Renault contemporaries listed above.  They were really into this ‘shelf’ design with the upright rear window.

Note that both sides look about the same – there’s no suicide door to access the rear on either side.  Access was granted through LONG doors.  Of course, this is the driver’s side on the RHD example.

The two-tone interior is nice, but not quite as bold as the exterior.  This vehicle suffers from one of the worst ideas of the early 2000s – center-mounted instruments.  That’s one thing that helped Renault offer this in RHD, however.

Seats look stylish and supportive.

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