Renault Espace

The Renault Espace is an MPV/minivan automobile originally designed by Chrysler UK in Coventry, in collaboration with Matra of France. It was manufactured by Matra in France, and marketed by Renault. Originally launched in 1984 and currently in its fourth generation, it seats seven passengers; the Renault Grand Espace is a longer-wheelbase version which seats seven and holds their luggage too. Along with the Dodge Caravan, the Espace was the original minivan.

History

The Espace's design was originally conceived in the 1970s by the British designer, Fergus Pollock, who was working for Chrysler UK, the UK subsidiary of Chrysler, at their design centre in Coventry . Later Matra, who were affiliated with Simca, the then French subsidiary of Chrysler, were involved in partnership in the design.

The Espace was originally intended to be sold as a Talbot, and to be a replacement for the Matra Rancho station wagon. Early prototypes used Simca parts, and hence featured a grille reminiscent of the Simca 1307.

In 1977, before the Espace went into production, Chrysler UK and Simca were sold to the French company PSA Peugeot Citroën (PSA), and the Espace design was given to Matra.

PSA decided the Espace was too expensive and too risky a design to put into production, and Matra took their idea to Renault (PSA finally ventured into the minivan sector 11 years later with the Citroën Evasion/Peugeot 806).

The Matra concept became the Renault Espace. The design featured a fiberglass body mounted on a warm-galvanized steel chassis, using the same technique and assembly line at the factory as the Talbot Matra Murena. In fact, the introduction of the Espace required the relatively small factory to cease the production of the Murena, to make room for the Espace.

The Espace was launched by Renault in 1984 (incidentally, the minivan that Chrysler had also been developing in the US was released a year earlier than the Espace in 1983).

Building upon its success, the Espace was revamped in 1988 with most of the Talbot/Simca content being replaced by equivalent Renault parts (the chassis and mechanical components of the car remained largely unchanged). The most obvious cosmetic exterior difference between the very first Espaces and the revamped post-1988 models were the changed headlights: the forward-slanting lights with orange indicator casing of the original Espace were replaced with backward-slanting lights with a clear indicator casing.