When drawing models that have yet to appear, practice sometimes turns out to be different later on. That was certainly the case with the Renault Laguna, which we first tried to imagine exactly thirty years ago.
At the beginning of 1992 it became clear that Renault was busy with a successor for the 21. Not surprising, since the 21 had been running for six years by then. The 90s had arrived and the design trend dictated that cars should be a lot rounder in shape than before. With that assignment, the Renault designers started working on a new mid-sized car, which in March 1992 we only knew under the working name Project X56. Ultimately, that car would be introduced to the world in 1993 as Laguna.
As you can see from the illustration, we were still quite in the dark when it came to the design of the Laguna. With the round shapes and the small grille split into two parts, we were pretty good. The shape of the taillights was also correct. That is what has been said. No shame, by the way: the ‘X56’ had only appeared in public at that time, heavily camouflaged. With that, Renault clearly managed to throw more than enough sand in our eyes. For example, we were put on the wrong track with regard to the headlights, because the Laguna looked into the world a lot more aggressively than the car in the illustration. The C-pillar was also quite different from the almost Opel Calibra-like lines that the artist imagined.
In the motor area, the Laguna also dried up a bit differently than we expected. For example, in 1992 we stated that a 1.4 would also be part of the party, but the offer eventually started with a 1.6. We were right that there would be a V6. However, that was not a 2.5-liter but a 3.0. We were not far off with the drag coefficient of 0.29, which was eventually 0.30. The Laguna was therefore not only a lot more modern in shape than the 21, it also clearly cut through the air a lot more efficiently.
The Laguna turned out to be quite a game changer for Renault, which had quite a bit of trouble with the competition with the 21 to provide a rebuttal. Here in the Netherlands, the Laguna was a hit and in the peak year of 1995, no fewer than 11,000 Laguna were registered. Roughly double the number of 21’s sold in the best year (1990). Especially the Laguna Break managed to charm many Dutch people. Renault also got some more allure in the middle class with the Laguna, for example with the elaborately stripped Baccara version. Incidentally, the second generation Laguna became even more successful here, with the peak year of 2002 with no fewer than 13,500 copies sold.
Do you want to look for a Renault Laguna of the first generation yourself? Take a look at the used car range here on AutoWeek.nl.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl