Renault LeCar, page #21

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Renault taking Alpine endurance racing, enters 24 Hours of Le Mans

Renault isn't letting up with the return of its Alpine brand. After announcing a partnership with Caterham to bring a new Alpine to market by 2015 (now expected by 2016), the French firm has announced it is taking Alpine racing again in the European Le Mans Series this year - and that includes The 24 Hours of Le Mans.
It has been 35 years since Alpine last competed in Le Mans, when it won the race outright and dropped the mic as it left the pits, never to return. Before that, in the 11 years it campaigned in the most famous endurance race on the planet from 1963 to 1978, it took seven class wins.
Caterham won't be involved with the race team, however; that will be an effort spearheaded by the Signatech-Nissan team that has been running GT Academy winners in LMS racing. Alpine is preparing an LMP2 chassis that will get a 500-horsepower Nissan engine for this year's championship, with the first two named drivers being Nelson Panciatici (above right) and Pierre Ragues (above left). The third driver for Le Mans will be announced later this month when the racer is launched at the Le Castellet race track in southern France.

2013 Renault Captur features zip-off seat covers, crisper drawer glovebox [w/videos]

Evidently, Renault's executives in France have not been content to sit idly by as their alliance partners at Nissan have happily mopped up enviable global sales totals with their Juke crossover. We've been hearing about an answer from Renault for some time now, and the production Captur is finally a reality at the Geneva Motor Show.
Packing what it says is the styling and driving position of an SUV, the configurable interior of a minivan and the driving verve of a small sedan, the Captur is hoping to become a big-volume player in Europe's mushrooming small CUV class that also includes cars like the Škoda Yeti. Less boxy than its Czech rival, the Captur's fluid styling is also unlikely to furrow as many brows and wrinkle as many noses as the love/hate Juke. And taking a page from the Mini playbook, Captur will offer a contrasting roof paint color to increase personalization possibilities. Even if it lacks some of the visual charisma (and the butterfly doors) of the 2011 Captur concept, we think it's a very handsome package overall, one we wouldn't mind seeing in North America.
Clever details abound in the interior - check out the videos below - including a large crisper-drawer-like glovebox and trick washable seat covers that zip off and can be changed depending on one's mood.

Renault Sc'enic minivan crosses over with new Xmod variant

Renault has given us all the goods on its newest crossover, the Scénic Xmod, one month in advance of the vehicle's world debut at the Geneva Motor Show. The Xmod seeks to punch up the Scénic line of small MPVs with all-wheel drive and slightly butched up looks. (It's a formula that has panned out well for the French automaker before, with the likes of the Scénic RX4 and Scénic Conquest, for what it's worth.)
Visually, the Xmod takes us on a trip to crossover land, with increased ride height, beefier front and rear bumpers, side sill guards and a pair of utile, chrome-finished roof bars. Special alloy wheels and a set of LED daytime running lights complete the visual package.
Renault is also touting the use of its new Grip Xtend traction control system that includes a driver-adjustable knob to tailor the traction control to different surfaces, but the model is not available with all-wheel drive.

Fiat contemplating sub-brand to compete with Dacia, Datsun

You can add Fiat to the admittedly short list of automakers considering a low-cost brand to rival Dacia. The inexpensive Eastern European brand from Renault-Nissan has performed on the balance sheet like a premium model line, and the money the alliance is taking off the table is encouraging other players to deal themselves in. Pretty soon Nissan's Datsun sub-brand will join the Dacia party, going on sale in Russia, Indonesia and India and will claim even more rubles, rupiahs and rupees for the parent company. Volkswagen recently said it will make a decision this year on a budget line for the Chinese market. With the euthanasia of Lancia and plans to move the Fiat brand upmarket, company CEO Sergio Marchionne wonders aloud to Automotive News Europe whether there could be room for a new budget brand underneath Fiat.
We're told that the initiative has been in the idea box for five years and even moved to the stage of name considerations, like Innocenti, but worries about profit kept it from realization. If such a range were to be developed, Marchionne says it couldn't be built in Italy and stay within budget, and the company is "analyzing its manufacturing capacity outside of Europe to see if a low-cost brand is viable."

Renault brings Captur from concept to reality with new CUV

Renault has officially brought the Captur Concept to life with a new small crossover. The production version has abandoned the wild scissor doors and bulbous fenders of the concept in favor of a more mature five-door configuration.
Based on the Renault Clio, the Captur offers buyers a range of gasoline and diesel engines. While the automaker hasn't served up any drivetrain specifics, we'd be surprised if the Captur option sheet didn't come littered with the same powerplants as its cousin, including a turbocharged .9-liter three-cylinder and a 1.2-liter turbocharged gasoline engine as well as a 1.5-liter diesel. A six-speed dual-clutch transmission handles shifting duties in all applications.
The Captur will be built at the Renault facility in Valladolid, Spain. Expect to see the machine receive an official unveil at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show in March. Until then, you can take a closer look at the full press release below, and be sure to click through the complete gallery here as well.

Dacia brand has become "cash cow" for parent Renault

No one, not even former Renault CEO Louis Schweitzer whose idea it was to buy Dacia in 1999, had any idea the low-cost Eastern European sub-brand would succeed this well. The Romanian automaker with three wheels in the ground at the time of its takeover was purchased the same year that Renault took its stake in Nissan, and no one had much to say about that smaller deal. Fast forward 13 years, the line that began with the Logan in 2004 is now five model lines on sale in 36 countries, it's year-on-year sales have never decreased and the vehicles built on its M0 entry-level platform sold nearly a million units in 2012. This isn't just an emerging-market story, either, with Dacia branded offerings making up 17 percent of Renault volume in Western Europe.
Its rampaging sales and the synergies between the Renault and Dacia lines have turned the brand into a "cash cow" in the words of Renault's COO. Its vehicles share a huge number of parts, many of which are still carryover nine years into the brand's life, and parts of the recently introduced second-generation Logan are evolved from the 1990 Renault Clio. In fact, due to amortization and decreased prices for parts because of the massive sales, the new Logan is less expensive to produce than the first generation, so it was given new equipment along with the refresh in order to maintain its price.
The news is even better in other regions, where the Dacia can command more money on its own or can be sold under the Renault or Nissan brands. The Duster in Western Europe that starts at 12,000 euros starts at 19,000 euros in Brazil. That's how Dacia, according to a Morgan Stanley analyst, returns a worldwide nine-percent operating margin as opposed to Renault's 0.4-percent. What lies ahead is more models and variants, as well as a modular strategy for the M0 platform to further reduce costs, and, one supposes, even more money from that Romanian cow.

Renault will have new Alpine ready by end of 2015

We earlier reported that Renault's revival of the Alpine name would take four years. But Stephen Norman, head of marketing for Renault, says to expect the first new Alpine sometime before the end of 2015.
Norman also tells Autocar that the Alpine jointly developed with Caterham "won't be more hardcore than a Mazda MX-5." He went on to say we should expect a competitor for the Porsche Boxster and high-performance Audi TTS. "You can't betray the DNA of Alpine," Norman says. "That's a third of what the car will be."

Renault appoints Dacia Logan creator to head its Nano-rival program in India

After watching the Tata Nano post sales numbers smaller than its engine displacement, Renault gave up on its much publicized intention to build a truly inexpensive car to rival it. Then, a month ago, reports emerged that Renault was resuming work on a couple of low-priced cars for emerging markets, but this time it would work with its in-house partner, Nissan. That plan envisions an offering for €3,000 ($3,888 US) and another for €5,000 ($6,400 US), both of which would be more spendy than the Nano but might avoid the charge of being cheap - and nasty - and instead be considered affordable.
A report in Reuters talks to the man in charge, Gerard Detourbet, who has been in Chennai, India since at least August working on the program. Detourbet led the Dacia Logan project and is considered "Renault's low-cost car specialist" and "the father of entry-car programs." This one is reportedly codenamed A-Entry and will create a "'sub-entry' architecture" that will provide roominess beyond the vehicle's price and class, and use an engine with a displacement of 800 cubic centimeters.
It isn't aimed at the Nano, though - it means to take on the products that make up 45-50 percent of India's car market, like the Maruti Suzuki Alto and Hyundai Eon. According to Reuters, out of the 2.6-million-strong Indian car market the Maruti Suzuki line-up alone nabs one million registrations annually. The Alto 800 begins at 244,000 rupees ($4,440 US), the Eon at 300,000 rupees ($5,559 US), the Chevrolet Spark at about 316,000 ($5,750 US); if Renault can nail its price targets it will just about bracket those three and be right in the game.

EU formally questions French government assistance of Peugeot's finance arm

Recently, the finance arm of PSA/Peugeot-Citroën was in such debt trouble that it was pricing itself out of the car loan market. The rates it was paying to service its debt, which was rated one step above junk, were so high that it was forced to charge car-buying customers higher rates than they could find elsewhere. This was adding to Peugeot's already impressive woes by sending revenue out the door to competitors.
Two months ago a deal was worked out with the French government whereby the state would provide 7 billion euro ($9 billion USD) in bonds to guarantee the finance arm's loans. The French government could nominate someone to join the Peugeot board, Peugeot would guarantee more French jobs, and on top of that deal, other banks would provide non-guaranteed loans. The government would take no equity stake in the car company.
Although not yet finalized, the arrangement is meant to create some breathing room for Peugeot Finance to lower its interest rates for customers, and a government-nominated board member, Louis Gallois, was recently named to Peugeot's supervisory board. The arrangement was also openly questioned by at least three competitors: Ford, Renault - which is 15-percent owned by the French government after it received state aid - and the German state of Lower Saxony, itself a 15-percent shareholder in Volkswagen.

End of the road for French flagship sedans as Citro"en C6 production winding down

Even if their avant-garde styling has historically meant that they would never enjoy the sales success of their more staid German counterparts, it was always somehow comforting to know that the French were building large sedans. With a history of nontraditional looks and peerless ride quality (a legacy built on the hydropneumatic suspension of the original Citroën DS), big French cars have always been an acquired taste.
And now it appears buyers with that specific palette won't have a clear place to go, at least for a while. According to Automotive News, production of the Citroën C6 shown above (click to enlarge) is scheduled to cease this month, leaving French buyers (and Francophiles) without a true-bleu option. As the article points out, Renault will still offer its Latitude - effectively a badge-engineered rework of the Korean-built Samsung SM5 - but patriotic consumers have apparently been staying away because it isn't French enough (Renault has sold under 3,800 examples this year).
Renault may yet provide an answer for its displaced countrymen in the form of a new Initiale Paris-branded flagship offering that would be developed on Mercedes-Benz E-Class britches, but it has not yet decided whether it will move forward with the car. The alternative, to follow Citroën and Peugeot in leaving the segment, is probably looking quite appealing now, especially with Europe's continued economic malaise.