This is Renault’s all-new coupe SUV: the Rafale

Renault releases the first image of a brand new SUV called the Rafale. The model will be Renault’s flagship.

The Rafale is a coupe SUV in the D segment. The car will not be fully electric. The model is based on the CMF-C/D platform on which the Espace and the Austral are also built.

The brand new coupe SUV from Renault

Exactly how big the Renault Rafale will be and what specifications it will have is still unclear. So there is already a lot to see from the design.

Renault Rafale has its own unique design

Since the emphasis is very much on “something”, we can’t understand it yet. What we see is that the model has a completely different front end than, for example, the Espace or the Austral and that it also doesn’t match the revised front end of the new Clio. The rear and the side also look completely different than we know from Renault. For example, it has nothing to do with the smaller coupe SUV: the Renault Arkana.

An airplane

The name of the new Renault “Rafale” comes from a French airplane. After the takeover of Coudron in 1933, the French car brand built its own engines, for example for aircraft, under the name Caudron-Renault. One of these aircraft was called the Rafale.

Sylvia (model naming strategy manager in Renault’s global marketing department) explains why this name suits this car so well. “Rafale evokes the wind that its aerodynamic body seems to have created. The word refers to the streamlined silhouette and strong character of the model.”

Renault unveils the Rafale car on June 18, 2023.