Fast Facts

Verdict:
It’s a highly capable car, and Nissan underpinnings means that it’ll most likely be very reliable too

Roomy cabin, easily accessible boot and good all round visibility

Poor steering feedback, noisy air-con fan, no seven-seat option

Renault’s Koleos is more than just a pretty face

By Lionel Kong in Fez, Morocco

ONCE UPON A time, an off-road vehicle was a real off-road vehicle. The original Jeeps and Land Rovers from the mid-20th century were built for military use and designed to cross jungles and ford while other cars fell to pieces around them. Then somewhere along the way, some marketing guru decided that it was a good idea to make these rugged behemoths into something more comfortable and market them to regular city-dwellers who were going for the tough-boy look.

It worked for awhile, before all the negative traits associated with driving a large, pollutive, fuel guzzling monster through narrow urban streets caught up with them. The cars remain highly popular with drivers looking for a vehicle with a large cabin, high driving position and an outdoorsy kind of feel, but in these times of high fuel prices worldwide, driving around in one is no longer the politically correct thing to do.

Renault’s Koleos is the first modern off road capable car from the French brand, and into this sensitive situation it is dropped into. It’s trying very hard to not be an SUV despite the fact that it quite clearly is one. Renault puts the Koleos in softer territory, calling it a ‘4X4 Crossover’ even though it’s a decent bit tougher than many other competitors that were originally launched with the ‘SUV’ tag.

It’s not an entirely French car, because the Koleos was developed jointly by Renault and Nissan, with the manufacturing being done at Korea’s Renault Samsung plant. The car is sold in Korea as the Renault Samsung QM5, which is essentially a variant of the Koleos with slightly different specifications for the Korean market segment.

The final result isn’t as confused as it sound like on paper. The car is still very clearly a Renault, though beneath the sheet metal, the chassis is a slightly modified version of the one that forms the backbone of Nissan’s new X-Trail. The 2.5-litre engine is also from Nissan. The Japanese firm used its experience from building the first X-Trail and Murano to good use here. Manufacturing the car in Busan, Korea, helps keep production costs manageable, which should help keep prices highly competitive.