Reinventing Scenic: Renault's design journey from MPV to SUV

What's in a nameplate? The car industry has been playing with the badges on the back of vehicles for decades, of course, but actually using an established moniker on a new generation of model presents real challenges. Sometimes it works, as with MINI (though even then, the Countryman is controversial). Other times it almost invites a backlash from devotees (the recent Ford Capri, anyone?).

European brands in particular are going to lean on known names even more heavily in the years ahead, as Chinese manufacturers with next to no legacy try to get a foothold in the market. 

The new Renault Scenic is a case in point. Here’s a badge that had a strong following throughout the peak people-carrier years, when it slotted neatly into the French maker’s line-up beneath the Espace. It even went on to, in effect, replace the original MPV, as the Grand Scenic, and was well respected for offering carry-all practicality at an affordable price. The fourth generation of the car was a victim of the dwindling market for MPVs, though, and was dropped from the UK back in 2021.

Now there’s a new Mk5 Renault Scenic, though, and on paper at least, it’s a very different creation – part SUV, part family hatchback, part MPV, all electric. ‘Crossover’ is a dreadfully muddied word but perhaps this, in the purest sense, is what Renault has created here.

The brand’s design director isn’t about to use that label, but he freely admits that when the Renault management sat down to sketch out what the Scenic should now be, it didn’t look anything like what’s gone before. “It was tricky, I have to say,” Gilles Vidal tells us. “The badge, the name, means that we have to deliver a car that’s easy to live with, something that brings roominess and practicality to customers. And yet the target this time was for it also to be a sexy car.

“We didn’t want to go for another monobox [the French phrase for the traditional MPV] because we know it’s out of fashion. If you look at sales worldwide of those kinds of vehicles, they keep going down and down, year after year – no matter what attempts manufacturers make to do something cool with them. So we said, ‘Okay, we know what to do, what we need to deliver in terms of dimensions and so forth – but we don’t want to make an SUV either, in the old sense.’”

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Anyone with the faintest interest in car-buying habits will recognise that any manufacturer actively trying to not make another SUV is bucking the trend. We’ve heard whispers of it before – a belief, for example, that younger buyers may want to avoid SUVs because, like generations before them, they inherently don’t want to buy the same type of car that their parents owned (is anyone else hanging on to this theory as a potential reason for the return of the estate car?).

In Renault’s case, Vidal and his design team took the CMF-EV underpinnings of the Renault Megane and stretched them, trying to boost interior space while still retaining a dramatic overall profile.

“We needed to have something convincing, a shape that people would get attracted to without really thinking about it,” he explains.

“So that’s why we went fairly wide on the Scenic’s track, for example; if you look now at the front or the rear, head on, you see a fairly wide vehicle with a stance that’s very strong.

“It’s not trying to be an ‘aero EV’-looking thing; it’s trying to be attractive, with a personality, a certain charisma – a crossover between things.”

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Ah. There it is. Got him. But clarification comes a split second later. “It’s not a crossover in the old sense,” Vidal corrects himself. “It’s a crossing between ideas.”

The overall stance and profile are one thing. But where the Scenic has scored big, compared with many of its closest rivals, is with what Vidal and his team have done with the space available. Elements such as the rear armrest, with its integrated phone and tablet holders, probably cost nothing extra in material terms, but they’re just clever practical touches that customers of this type of car appreciate – the very best examples of design at work, frankly.

Vidal is too modest to get down to specifics, but he does allow himself a smile. “I think that’s the key to delivering the right product. Technically, I don’t know what battery you use, what motor power output you have, the range on offer. In many ways you could have the same recipe there as others and have the same performance. It’s almost a given with electric cars, and you can pretty much say the same for quality and reliability.

“So it’s up to us, in design but also with the engineering and product teams, to deliver practical ideas, real-life stuff that works inside the car. We’re focusing care and attention into functions, into little tricks, that help to enhance your life, make it better. How do you erase daily frustrations? How do you add practicality and intelligence to the product? The Scenic is arguably really the start of this, but it’s certainly at the heart of what we’re asking ourselves when working on future products like the 5 and the 4.”

It’s appropriate, in a way, that the Scenic is carrying the torch for clever lifestyle elements that will filter through to the rest of Renault’s line-up. It may have changed dramatically but this is still a fine example of a vehicle and its raison d’etre being brought bang up to date.

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Vidal’s best bits of the new Scenic 

Stance

“Am I allowed to pick the overall stance? I guess I can. If you look at the front end of the car coming towards you, or see it in your rear-view mirror, the way that it sits nicely on the road, together with the sculpture of the wheelarches, is something that I don’t think you see too often on EVs these days. In general they’re more sleek and trying to be nice or just plain aero efficient – but I think Scenic has some character. It’s a kind of technological personality, maybe also a bit mysterious. I’m proud of that.”

Rear bumpers

“In the rear bumpers we have these vertical ‘blades’, which are helping with aerodynamics. They mean that the bumper itself can be kind of curvy, but the blades stick out and cut the air perfectly for aero efficiency. We’re probably not the first to think about stuff like this, I have to admit, but I’m pretty happy with how it’s worked out.”

Light-coloured interior

“There’s one of the cabin treatments that’s really light, and I’m particularly fond of it. It gives a lot of space and an airy feeling to the cabin that I love. It works regardless of the exterior treatment too.”

Now read our in-depth review of the Renault Scenic...