Autoblog

Click to view more of the upcoming Renault Megane

Renault has been hard at work on the replacement for the current Megane. Following the new Clio, which came out three years ago, the Megane is an important model for the French automaker, designed to face off against volume leaders like the Volkswagen Golf/Rabbit and Ford Focus. French magazine Auto Plus has managed to obtain some undisguised shots of the car, presumably obtained from a Renault employee in exchange for a case of wine, a carton of Gauloise and/or a joke about Americans.

As promised, the new Megane will be substantially more subdued in its styling than the love-it-or-hate-it current model, with its curved upright rear window. The front end borrows heavily from the new Laguna, hinting at a common design language for the company. There's certainly some similarity between the production version and the Megane Coupe Concept unveiled at the Geneva show this year. Although the production Megane will predictably be considerably more conservative than the show car, the three-door appears further differentiated from its five-door stablemate with more sporting lines. See for yourself in the scanned magazine pages in the gallery below. The car looks just about ready to hit the market, so a debut at Renault's home-turf Paris Auto Salon this fall would be a good bet.

Gallery: Renault Megane magazine scans

[Source: AutoPlus.fr via theCarfanatic.com and Autoblog Spanish]