| First Drive | Faro, Portugal | Renault Laguna Coupé |

Renault revisits the coupé market with its new Laguna Coupé, a much more conservative and measured approach than the outrageous Avantime that counts as the latest coupé sold by the company. The French firm hopes this restrained move and the Coupé's sleek looks will help it compete against the likes of the Audi A5 and BMW 3 Series Coupé.

In the Metal

There's no doubting the Renault Laguna Coupé is dripping with details that fascinate the eye. Chief designer Patrick Le Quement has pulled off a great job of turning the regular Laguna into a tasty two-door and the sweep of the lines is distinctive. Pretty? Perhaps not in the way of some far more expensive machinery in this class, but it definitely stands out. The Coupé sits 40mm lower than the Laguna hatch, while styling details help give the appearance of a broader stance, even though Coupé and hatch are the same width. The sloping rear window leads to a separate boot that opens to reveal a small aperture. Long doors have three opening positions and give as reasonable access to the rear seats as most cars in this class, Mazda RX-8 excepted.

What you get for your Money

Renault doesn't hold back on Laguna Coupé buyers. All Coupés come with a CD stereo with MP3 connector, automatic lights and wipers, climate control, rear parking sensors, Xenon headlights and 18-inch alloy wheels. Go for the GT version and you have leather upholstery, keyless entry and ignition, automatic parking brake, and Renault's 4Control chassis (essentially rear-wheel steering, as previewed in the Laguna GT). There's a choice of two petrol and two diesel engines to begin with: a 205bhp 2.0 Turbo petrol and 3.5 V6, and 150- and 180bhp 2.0 dCi turbodiesels. A 3.0 V6 turbodiesel will follow on shortly after the Laguna Coupé goes on sale in the UK.

Driving it

We've only tried the Laguna Coupé in its V6-powered range topping forms and both come with the 4Control chassis as standard, so it's tricky to draw any conclusions about versions without this set-up. Certainly, the 4Control system, which allows up to 3.5-degrees of turn in the rear wheels to improve agility and turning response, gives the Coupé quick reactions and offers plenty of cornering grip. It's enough to give many four-wheel drive cars a run for their money and the ESP does the decent thing by not coming into play until the car is wandering off course. So, the Laguna Coupé is reasonably sporty, but the low level of steering feel lets the side down. The V6 engines serve up strong rather than swift performance, with the 232bhp 3.0 V6 diesel covering 0-62mph marginally quicker than the 3.5-litre petrol V6 model. We'd take the diesel every time; not only is it quicker off the mark, it's much more refined and relaxed too, suiting the Laguna Coupé's grand touring nature far better than the petrol. The V6 petrol needs to be revved hard to dish up anything like decent progress and it sounds strained when treated in this way. There's not as much of a cultured V6 bark as you might expect in a coupé either. Putting the icing on the cake for the diesel is its 39.2mpg combined economy to the petrol's 28.2 and CO₂ emissions of 192g/km for the diesel versus the petrol's 238g/km.

Even more disappointing than the petrol V6's short-changing aural appeal is the jittery ride of the Coupé. Again, we felt the diesel V6 gave a better account of itself over poorly surfaced roads at higher speeds, suffering much less of the petrol's unsettled patter across bumps and ridges. However, both versions have a ride that crashes over low-speed interruptions for no good reason - the Laguna hatch doesn't do this. Far from making the Laguna Coupé feel sporty, the firm suspension detracts from its long distance GT appeal. On the plus side, refinement is good at high speeds, with road, wind and engine noise all sealed out of the cabin to make it a comfortable place to travel.

Worth Noting

One of the overriding impressions we were left with of the Laguna Coupé was the terrible automatic gearbox that comes as standard with both petrol and diesel V6 models. The turbodiesel V6's broad spread of low- and mid-range power helps to mask the transmission's tardy responses, but it's brought into sharp focus in the petrol model when the driver uses the manual override. The changes themselves are smooth enough, but the gearbox takes so long to respond to the driver's demands - or to a solid shove on the throttle in an attempt to make use of the kick down - it spoils the drive. On many occasions we nudged the gear lever to drop down a gear on the approach to a corner only for the gearbox to do nothing. Then, half way around the corner the 'box would suddenly decide to drop a gear. Renault says the gearbox learns how a driver is behaving and adapts accordingly, but we saw no evidence of this.

Summary

There's much to like about the Renault Laguna Coupé. It handles well, looks good and offers reasonable rear seat and boot space for this class of car. It's also well equipped and the more affordable petrol and diesel engines offer decent performance with attractively low carbon dioxide emissions and good economy. However, the unsettled ride comfort and doddering responses of the automatic gearbox fitted to the more expensive models would have us looking to the likes of the Mazda RX-8 and Volkswagen Scirocco for an affordable alternative or the Audi A5 and BMW 3 Series for a premium rival.