Renault Wind Blown Away

[threespires]

I'm devastated, Renault have announced that they will drop the Wind from their line up in February.
I'm sure many will be sad to hear of the passing of this magnificent drop top with it's Ferrari Barchetta style top.


Renault Wind

Here is proof that they sold at least one.


Renault Wind

[LuS1fer]

It only had 3 things going against it:
(1) It was a Renault
(2) They called it Wind - I was looking forward to the eco Wind-E
(3) It looks like a plastic clog.

It must be a kick in the teeth when not even the totally undiscerning female population of the UK won't buy it.

[Dave Hedgehog]

no one will be missing the renault fart

[threespires]

This is to go along with some other low selling cars from the Renault range have been dropped.
At the end of next year, Renault dealers will add Dacia. Judging by the number seen in France, I think they will be looking forward to that, they are everywhere.

[LuS1fer]

threespires said:

This is to go along with some other low selling cars from the Renault range have been dropped.
At the end of next year, Renault dealers will add Dacia. Judging by the number seen in France, I think they will be looking forward to that, they are everywhere.

So were Renault 4's. Not exactly a discerning race, the French.

[RJP001]

For a shopping trolley I think it looks quite good. But isn't a shopping trolley so I can see why not many sold compared to the gazzilions of Corsas and Fiestas out there.

[Funk]

LuS1fer said:

It must be a kick in the teeth when not even the totally undiscerning female population of the UK won't buy it.

It's really taken the Wind out of Renault's sales.

[Talksteer]

The original concept for the Wind was pretty innovative:

The idea was that it would be a 2+1 convertible. The clever bit being that the third seat would mean that the average family of two cars and two children would be able to carry one parent and two kids around in their second car thus opening up a much larger market for the roadster.

The eventual execution was pretty poor and had non of the original concept in it. I can't help but think that they couldn't manage to meet crash and roll over standards without using some expensive engineering.

[LuS1fer]

Funk said:

It's really taken the Wind out of Renault's sales.

[cymtriks]

What a dreadful looking car.

What a shame when you see the lovely concept.

I can't see a future for all three French makes. Only massive help has kept them going. Would you seriously rate any of them higher than Rover or SAAB? Yet all three are still here. It can't go on.

[LuS1fer]

cymtriks said:

What a dreadful looking car.

What a shame when you see the lovely concept.

I can't see a future for all three French makes. Only massive help has kept them going. Would you seriously rate any of them higher than Rover or SAAB? Yet all three are still here. It can't go on.

Unlike the wholesale defection to the enemy in the UK, French patiotism means they still buy the cars regardless.

[Classic Grad 98]

Talksteer- thanks for posting that. What a shame they varied so much from the concepts Although I don't think the single rear seat would've been feasible from a packaging perspective.

[rallycross]

the wind has gone, its been wound-up, it was such a horrible looking thing I thought it was a wind up anyone.

[JonnyFive]

I love the seats in these, other than that.. Gash.

[Talksteer]

Classic Grad 98 said:

Talksteer- thanks for posting that. What a shame they varied so much from the concepts Although I don't think the single rear seat would've been feasible from a packaging perspective.

Well I can see a number of problems, the third seat is going to make a folding top difficult without taking all of that seat's head room.

Likewise for a car of this type it will need a pop up roll bar, you might be able to do a hoop shaped one around he rear or a single rising post behind the head of the rear passenger but it's going to involve some interesting structural design.

[Low Pro]

Renault fail to look at the Fiat garage: Fiat 500 convertable??? who would buy the renualt when you could have one of those!!

[collateral]

That concept looks like a cross between a 350Z and an MX-5, but what they put into production is oddly proportioned to put it kindly

[Redlake27]

They've had a cull of rhd versions only.

This includes:

Wind - No great loss
Laguna - Sign of the UK market trend which prefers badges and pseudo 4x4s to saloons
Laguna Coupe - A shame. I think they are really pretty.
Espace - A brilliant car, but the market wants less practical SUVs instead
Modus - Quite a clever little car, but no one knows what it is, and the OAPS will buy Fusions, Jazz and Vengas instead
Koleos - Well, that should never have been born.

All the above contributed to 10% of Renault sales, meaning 90% was Clio, Megane/Scenic and Twingo.

At least we still have the wonderful Renaultsports.

[stackmonkey]

LuS1fer said:

It only had 3 things going against it:
(1) It was a Renault
(2) They called it Wind - I was looking forward to the eco Wind-E
(3) It looks like a plastic clog.

(4) They've cancelled the clockwork version too - called the Wind-up

[80quattro]

Redlake27 said:

They've had a cull of rhd versions only.

This includes:

Wind - No great loss
Laguna - Sign of the UK market trend which prefers badges and pseudo 4x4s to saloons
Laguna Coupe - A shame. I think they are really pretty.
Espace - A brilliant car, but the market wants less practical SUVs instead
Modus - Quite a clever little car, but no one knows what it is, and the OAPS will buy Fusions, Jazz and Vengas instead
Koleos - Well, that should never have been born.

All the above contributed to 10% of Renault sales, meaning 90% was Clio, Megane/Scenic and Twingo.

At least we still have the wonderful Renaultsports.

+1
Renault have just launched the facelifted Scenic and Twingo, and also have 5 E.V's out through 2012. The new Clio is also due to be launched early 2012, and they have two new cars out in approx 12 months, based on the Qashqai and Juke floorplans. Makes sense to cull the older models that are such low volume, especially the Koleos that was never built by Renault anyway.