Renault Megane ZX1: Renault Megane concept drive

The ZX1 coupé concept car, revealed at the Geneva show as a strong hint to the look of the next Mégane range, is designed to show Renault's return to striking design now that the quality and reliability are sorted out. That's the official line, anyway. 'We have focused too much on technical points, and now we want people to fall in love with our cars,' says Stéphane Janin, who is in charge of Renault's concept car projects. It seems the backlash against the latest Laguna and Twingo, visual dullards both, has hurt, but Renault Supremo Carlos Ghosn was adamant that Renaults must be made reliable so people would trust the brand. And that message was easier to get across if the cars looked less frivolous. Now, after the brief period of design denial Renault is back to making the next Mégane, to be revealed as a production car at October's Paris show, as strikingly different from its rivals as the current one was at launch. But the next Mégane coupé won't have these two-part 'dragonfly' doors, which are just a bit of fun to add drama to the show car. They were also the most difficult parts to make according to Minh Au Truong, who managed the ZX1 building project during its construction at G-Studio in Turin. So, how much of the ZX1 will we see in the production car? Maybe half of it if we're lucky? 'For the exterior, some elements are 100 per cent, some zero per cent,' says Janin. 'Seventy-five to 80 per cent is what you will see. The lines around the headlamps and rear lamps, and the shape of the side of the car, are all very close. But this is wider and longer because it's a concept.' Some 'concepts' are effectively glammed-up production cars, made into show cars once the real thing is signed off. The last two Jaguars are good examples of this. The ZX1 is more the traditional concept car, which is how it's able to be bigger than either the current Mégane platform or the next car's base, codenamed X95 and already seen under alliance partner Nissan's Qashqai. Look underneath the ZX1 and you'll see a simple square-tube frame, generic coilover front suspension and ultra-basic trailing-arm rear suspension. Over all this is a beautifully-made carbonfibre body, while under the bonnet is not the 2.0-litre, turbocharged, 200bhp engine of the putative production car but a simple Renault Twingo 1.2. 'We used it because it's an older engine design and we wouldn't have to create a CAN-BUS electronic system to get it to run,' says Minh. 'It helped us to complete the whole project in 12 months.' Some of the ZX1's more futuristic details won't make it to production, but they're worth a mention. The leading edges of the strakes inside the headlamp units light up to act as indicators, while at the other end the tail-lights are a square outline in red with indicators glowing within the square. The giant 21in wheels are handed left to right, so each spoke's separate air-scoop is working in the right direction, while the bootlid automatically slides backwards before moving vertically upwards. You brush the underside of the rear spoiler's outer edge to bring the doors to life. About 12 seconds later the bottom half has followed the top half upwards, and you can climb into an explosion of shiny red and soft grey. Clearly the fixed, moulded seats and obstructive screen pillars won't make production, neither will the rear-view cameras with their facia-mounted screens, but the shapes of the dials and dash aren't far from reality. The gear lever and clutch pedal are dummies, though, even if the lever's position map looks intriguingly like a USB symbol. To make the ZX1 go, you just rotate a selector to drive and move off, stuck in the single forward gear which restricts you to about 20mph but many rpm. That's not the point, though, because the ZX1 is merely meant to be a piece of kinetic art. But wouldn't it be good if the real Mégane coupé had doors like this?