The Story Of The Renault Espace F1, The Brand’s Maddest Car Ever

Renault is a company known to have a bit of a mad streak. Occasionally, in between building big-selling hatchbacks and crossovers, it’ll do something like taking its new electric supermini and turning it into a 533bhp drift machine, or decide that what the people really need is a gigantic pillarless two-door people carrier/coupe crossover with bafflingly intricate door mechanisms.

That occasional spark of lunacy arguably reached its peak in 1995, though, when Renault came up with its most ridiculous mashup yet: the running gear of a Formula 1 car draped in a body resembling that of the ultra-practical Espace people carrier.

You’ve probably seen pictures of this car, maybe seen footage of it properly exercising its screaming 789bhp, 3.5-litre, 14,000rpm V10 – the very same engine that powered the Williams FW15C to the 1993 F1 Constructors’ title. You might even have been lucky enough to see and hear it in person at the 2002 Goodwood Festival of Speed, when it appears to have made its last dynamic public appearance.

But with this bonkers one-off making an unexpected return to the spotlight thanks to its inclusion in Gran Turismo 7’s Spec III update, we thought it worth revisiting exactly why Renault decided to build it.

You see, it wasn’t entirely a ‘because we can’ type scenario, although the actual reason seems like a fairly flimsy excuse concocted to get the idea past higher-ups. Most of the time, when a car nameplate reaches a decade on sale, it’ll be lucky to have the occasion marked with a special edition. A special colour, a few badges here and commemorative plaques there – you know the drill.

But when the Espace – the seven-seater that had kicked off the MPV revolution in Europe in 1984 – reached that milestone, the F1 was how Renault chose to celebrate. Yes, we also wish more car companies marked decade-long sales runs by making ludicrous F1-powered one-offs.

To be clear, the relationship between the F1 and the roadgoing Espace was tenuous at best. The chassis was carbon fibre, as was the bodywork, and while the road car offered highly flexible seating for seven, the F1 only had space for four. Hang on, four? Yep, Renault managed to claw back some of the Espace’s practicality cred by cramming a quartet of racing seats into it, even though rear passengers would have to flank a fully-fledged Formula 1 V10. Hopefully, it came with earplugs.

Renault quoted the car’s performance figures at 2.8 seconds to 62mph and a 194mph top speed, although given it’s only ever been used sparsely, we’re not sure that’s ever been properly put to the test. Nowadays, it makes the odd static appearance, but mostly lives a pampered life in the museum in central France dedicated to Matra, the company that built the Espace for Renault. At least we can once again experience it digitally, 26 years after it made its only previous video game appearance in much lower-poly form in Gran Turismo 2.

And as for the Espace as a whole? Well, it couldn’t escape the rise of the SUV forever. The name lives on in mainland Europe, but it’s now on a generic family crossover, essentially a stretched version of the equally unremarkable Austral. A sad fate, then, for a once-innovative nameplate, but at least we have the F1 to remember what it once stood for.