Renault Scenic

A name once associated with MPVS is revived for a practical electric SUV On sale Early 2024 Price from £40,000 (est)

- Steve Huntingford

LUXURY FASHION LABEL Burberry almost went bust in 2008, having developed an undesirable image. Since then, though, it has been able to win customers back, not by looking to the past, but by moving with the times. And the team behind the latest Renault Scenic appears to be banking on a similar strategy.

You see, when it first went on sale in 1996, the Megane Scenic (as it was then called) was a new type of car that proved so popular that it had rival brands scrambling to produce copycat designs. Its practicality was the key to its success; this mini-MPV (badged simply as the Scenic after its 1999 facelift) took the high roofline and flexible seating of the iconic Renault Espace and applied them to a vehicle that was a more manageable size and significantly cheaper to buy.

As good as it was in its day, though, the Scenic ultimately fell victim to changing fashions, with the buyers who had once flocked to it moving on to family SUVs such as the Nissan Qashqai. But now the Scenic is coming back, having adopted SUV styling itself and metamorphosed into an electric car.