Poor Renault hasn’t had a very good time of it in F1 over the past decade or so, but the French carmaker would surely remind us all that it used to be very successful indeed, powering teams to 14 constructors’ titles in the past 32 years. Exactly the sort of success that leads to hubristic celebrations like the Espace F1, a doom-laden marriage of MPV and cutting edge formula racer worthy of Frankenstein.
The mid-mounted V10 F1 engine was yoinked straight out of Alain Prost’s FW15C from 1993, a double title winning car, and the engineers managed to extract 100bhp more power out of the engine than it had while racing in actual F1. It did require some minor modifications to the front engine, front drive layout – passengers would have to be careful not to lose their colouring pencils or glasses in those intake trumpets nestled neatly between the second row bucket seats. It would add a distinct frisson of excitement to the school run.