Renault Arkana

At the 2018 Moscow Auto Show, Renault unveiled the Arkana concept Coupe SUV, and about a year later, the production spec of the Coupe SUV - or Coupe Crossover as some would call it, thanks to its lower height - made its global debut, which stayed true to its concept and only had a few trivial changes. Now, a couple of years later, The Renault Arkana has been spotted in Chennai, India without wearing any disguise.

The Renault Arkana is a C-Segment compact coupe-SUV, which is based on a modified version of the BO platform which underpins the Renault Captur. This means that Renault may consider bringing the Arkana to the Indian market too. The compact SUV market is booming in India and with the Maruti-Suzuki S-Cross on its way out, there's an absence of crossovers or coupe SUVs in the C-segment market. There are a few coupe SUVs on sale in India, but they are premium offerings and cost well over a crore rupees.

This make the Arkana a unique offering in its segment as its expected price would be around Rs. 20 lakhs. For buyers who don't want an SUV-like stance in their car but also consider sedans impractical due to their lack of ground clearance, the Arkana could make a good case for itself. But we will have to wait to see if Renault chooses to bring this coupe SUV in India.

Overseas, the Renault Arkana is powered by a 1.3-litre TCe petrol engine, which is developed by Renault, Nissan & Mitsubishi together. Power output is rated at 148 bhp, and the motor develops peak torque of 250 Nm. If launched in India, the Arkana could also get a second engine on offer which would be more efficient and have a lower power output, and it is likely that it can borrow the second motor from the Captur, which is a 1.5-litre unit that develops 108 bhp.

The Renault Arkana Coupe SUV is also spacious, and gets an 8-inch touchscreen interface for the Renault easy link multimedia system, which supports Android Auto, and Apple CarPlay. The MULTI-SENSE technology gives the driver a choice of three driving modes (Eco, Sport, My sense) and it gets eight ambient colours. With all the seats up, the boot space is 508 litres which can be expanded to 1,333 litres by folding the split rear seats.

Other Upcoming Renault Models are the Boreal, Bigster, Kardian, Kwid EV, 4 Savane 4X4 EV and Bridger