Three freaky French flops | Axon's Automotive Anorak

If seeing a pair of rare 20-year-old French cars in the sparsely occupied Total service station was a bit of a surprise, the freaky moment was completed when I moved my car to pop in for a coffee and parked up next another French oddity that like the Peugeot and Renault, was an automotive answer to a question nobody had ever asked; this rare third car being a Citroen C3 Pluriel.

The Avantime, 1007 and C3 Pluriel were all previewed as pre-production concept cars before being launched in production form around the same time at the beginning of the new millennium, with each car conceived as solving a niche demand in the market that – unbeknown to the three manufactures at the time – simply wasn’t there.

Taking the Avantime first, this pioneering two/three-door luxury coupe was first shown as a concept car at the 1999 IAA Frankfurt Show. Based around the underpinnings of the popular Renault Espace MPV, the Avantime was conceived by Matra (which built the Espace for Renault at its historic Romorantin plant) and styled by Renault’s head of design – Patrick Le Quement. 

Launched to the public in 2001, after unanticipated and extensive delays trying to engineer the complex long and heavy wide-opening doors, initial demand for the Avantime was strong. This early flurry of demand quickly tailed off, however, and due to subsequent low demand, overly ambitious (i.e. high) pricing and manufacturing complications, by 2003 Renault had decided to pull the plug on both the Avantime and Matra itself, with Renault bringing all future Espace production in house.

The Avantime really was the answer to the question no one had ever asked as Renault and Matra soon found out to their costs. A large, plush top-heavy two-door MPV coupe ‘grand tourer’ was clearly not what the world was ready and waiting for. Just 8,557 examples of the Avantime were built over its short two-year production run, with around only 450 built in RHD for UK consumption. A future classic in the making, if ever there was one…

Production of the urban but unusual Peugeot 1007 was considerably higher than the luxury Renault at c.124,000 units. The very last model to be designed by Peugeot’s previously preferred stylist, Pininfarina, the boxy 1007 was first revealed as the Sesame concept car in 2002. Heavily glazed, like the Avantime, the small Peugeot’s main but uncommon feature was a pair of large (and heavy) sliding electric doors. These made it through to production when Peugeot launched the 1007 in 2004. 

In addition to its twin powered sliding doors, the 1007 also featured loose interior fabric trim pieces on the dash tops and seat inserts that could be swapped by the car’s owner if and when they got bored with the colour. Inevitably though, these usually got lost or destroyed (chewed) by younger occupants. The novelty door system proved to be very heavy in use and were borderline dangerous for younger passengers, who risked being taken out by the sliding moving doors.

Like the Avantime, the life cycle of the 1007 was considerably shorter than originally planned, with UK sales suspended in 2008 due to slow demand, and overall global production canned a year later in 2009. As for future classic status, beyond having a novelty value, the 1007 is unlikely to ever prove to be an object of desire.

Production of the urban but unusual Peugeot 1007 was considerably higher than the luxury Renault at c.124,000 units. The very last model to be designed by Peugeot’s previously preferred stylist, Pininfarina, the boxy 1007 was first revealed as the Sesame concept car in 2002. Heavily glazed, like the Avantime, the small Peugeot’s main but uncommon feature was a pair of large (and heavy) sliding electric doors. These made it through to production when Peugeot launched the 1007 in 2004. 

In addition to its twin powered sliding doors, the 1007 also featured loose interior fabric trim pieces on the dash tops and seat inserts that could be swapped by the car’s owner if and when they got bored with the colour. Inevitably though, these usually got lost or destroyed (chewed) by younger occupants. The novelty door system proved to be very heavy in use and were borderline dangerous for younger passengers, who risked being taken out by the sliding moving doors. 

Like the Avantime, the life cycle of the 1007 was considerably shorter than originally planned, with UK sales suspended in 2008 due to slow demand, and overall global production canned a year later in 2009. As for future classic status, beyond having a novelty value, the 1007 is unlikely to ever prove to be an object of desire.

Once the Pluriel’s complex roof system had been put back in place, the removable and heavy system was very prone to leaking, as well as annoying rattles. The drop-down tailgate pickup mode was also an appealing idea too, but in reality it was totally impractical as the car’s rear license plate didn’t fold down (a la old FX4 London taxi), making it illegal to drive the C3 on public roads.

Despite the huge popularity of the regular C3 hatchback, in Pluriel guise, the small Citroen was far less of a success, and the model was withdrawn from sale in 2010, following one dissatisfied customer complaint too many. The BBC’s Top Gear magazine voted the C3 Pluriel an unlucky 13th in its list of the worst cars sold over the previous 20 years in 2013, describing it “as useful as a chocolate teapot.”

This is a description that could equally be applied to the Renault Avantime and Peugeot 1007, as these inventive models all seemed like a good idea at the time, but… Sacre bleu…