Renault introduced the latest version of its Laguna luxury car today, which was short on driver-interface technology compared to competing mid- to low-end models from the likes of Mercedes and BMW, but it show some promise in the way of driving performance and gas consumption. Renault maintains, for example, that its engineers boosted the new Laguna's front and rear stiffness 20 per cent and 50 per cent, respectively. It will be interesting to see the difference that makes, in addition to other handling improvements, such as closer-ratio steering. How reliable the model is remains to be seen (my '98 Laguna's driving performance is very good, but the problem is that I spend well over $1,000 a year in repairs).
Renault says the 1.5 liter version consumes only 5.1 liters of gas over 100 km, with an average
CO2/km emissions of 136g of CO2/km. These are pretty good specs, and it will be interesting to test these claims this fall when the car is launched. The pics Renault showed today indicate that the designers took a more conservative tack compared to Laguna's of years past, although the headlights look okay, I guess.
No word on how much it will cost.
