There are lots of opportunities in life that lead us to notice that even the smallest facts can provoke enormous results, whether good or bad ones. Those are so frequent that even when restricted to the car world still end up a very large list. Citroën Visa, for instance, went from failure to success mostly due to a front bumper change. Honda’s moderation with the 2011 Civic, in turn, ended risking a long-time reputation in USA. Now it’s these minivans’ time to get updated, but their goal is different: they only needed a retouche d’image.
The most common thought of the people whose countries don’t offer Scénic must be “Why changing this generation so soon? I think it would still look young in a couple of years”. But the truth is it surprises even the Europeans, although for a different reason: “But this car was facelifted last year!”… Aging opinions aside, both groups can calm down with knowing more about the latter facelift. Do you remember how the cars’ design used to be mainly two-dimensional? Headlights and tail lights were kept on the front and rear panels, while the doors’ designs were started and ended only at the sides. The exceptions were more obvious, such as the roof designs for a sedan and a hatchback. Today’s design is much more complex because all the car’s sections became fully connected, and one example of that is what Renault has changed on Scénic. The front fascia of a modern car is physically constructed only by the bumper, which has also the front grille and ends outlining the lights, making it possible to perform big visual updates by changing only one part. Therefore, observing the pictures with more attention will lead to noticing that Scénic’s tail lights received new internal design while Grand Scénic’s remained untouched, but the biggest change wasn’t even complete: the front bumper was nothing but partially redesigned.
That part received a new upper grille with everything else staying the same, but why is this so important? Because this car has received the “bowtie”, which is some sort of the flagship item of Renault’s latest design language. This is very important because this automaker was starting to lack identity, mostly due to the various origins of its cars: some came from Dacia and others from Nissan and Samsung, not to mention what the simple age differences brought. But instead of very strong rules like Audi’s, Renault fortunately seems to be satisfied with having only some common items among its cars, freeing each one to maintain its own personality – actually, these minivans should’ve received this facelift right after Fluence, but had to step back in order to give space for Clio’s new generation. And as the mid-size sedan, which in fact is directly project-related to Scénic, there was no need to change more than applying the new corporate design. Both short and long-wheelbase options stayed the same elegant and classy vans, which took inspiration from Citroën’s C4 Picasso duo: the five-seater has some items with more casual look in order to resemble the sporty vehicles, while the bigger sister’s classical touch is clearly connected with the even bigger Espace. If you put them side-by-side with the other “bowtied” Renaults it would be very easy to notice their shared “genetics”, but does some of them look like a scaled version of other? The obviousness of this negative is what should be making Renault’s designers delighted.
However, it’s always nice to observe when “delighted” doesn’t mean “satisfied”. If the intention was to make Scénic look more casual in the small version, this update took this opportunity to bring the latest version of what’s already one of this car’s traditions: the light-off-road sister. Even though in nowadays the group offers crossovers, some customers still prefer a bigger car than Captur, fancier than Duster, more spacious than Koleos and more family-friendly than all of those. That’s why this version started as RX4, turned into Conquest and now arrives as XMOD: it’s easy to notice the new intentions with the more aggressive front design (by the way, once again achieved just changing the bumper) with bigger grille and imponent black-plastic protectors, which are continued by the sides and ended at a rear bumper which resembles RX4 very much. There are roof racks and an interesting traction system: since the car only has front-wheel-drive, Grip Xtend brings three driving modes for the traction control: Road, Loose Ground and Expert. Besides, the only interior update for the entire line is the addition of R-Link infotainment system, while the Bose sound system will come only at the most expensive trims. These cars will also offer new Energy engine options: they were updated to achieve 15% better consumption and emissions and, as usual, come with several power options – the most powerful will be TCe 130, with 128 hp. The new Scénic family will be officially released at the upcoming Geneva Motor Show.
