Renault Captur – two-tone triumph

SNAZZY style, cutting edge technology and the scope for countless personal touches have all helped the Captur compact crossover become Renault’s top seller in the UK.

Those stand-out looks and two-toned body certainly ensure the Captur turns heads as it perfectly fits the French company’s own description of the model as ‘a mini-SUV built for the big city’.

With a choice of four engines – both petrol and diesel – in as many trim grades, and prices from a competitive £15,300, there’s plenty of choice up for grabs.

The Captur’s a smart-looking car with plenty of space and practical touches, but its trump card is a range of personalisation options which cover everything from exterior and cabin colours to trims, wheels and body decals.

These themes are colour co-ordinated, with contrasting roof and bodywork paint choices, and if you get fed up with an interior fabric you can just zip it out and replace it with another design, while the original takes a tumble in the washing machine.

That’s a feature available on all bar the top spec Signature S Nav grade which has part-leather seat trim as opposed to the fabric of the rest of the line-up.

Compact, but high-riding, the Captur is built on the same underpinnings as the Clio, but with a longer platform to create a more spacious cabin and load space.

And, to that end, there’s a sliding rear bench seat and multi-position boot floor, while the base of each door is shaped to prevent shoes or clothing being soiled when getting in or out.

You also get a high-set driving position and an expansive boot – ranging from 377 to 455 litres with all the seats in place and up to 1,235 litres with them folded flat.

As for gadgets there’s a host of high-tech gizmos along with three touch-sensitive multimedia systems – R&Go, Media Nav and R-Link – plus DAB radio as standard.

You can also access your smartphone’s apps for navigation, music, calls and messaging with Android Auto, available with the R-Link set-up.

Various accessories and personalisation options are on offer as well, like roof bars at £120, side steps (£550) and wind deflectors (£70) while accessory packs include the Explore Pack at £800 which includes a Swan neck towbar and carrier for three bikes and the SUV Pack at £635 which has side steps, door sills and a boot sill protector.

Space sees all passengers able to take care of their own requirements thanks to central, side and seat-back storage while there’s also a small compartment on the dashboard for storing a wallet.

The engine line-up includes the three-cylinder TCe 90 petrol turbo unit and a three-cylinder dCi diesel with the same 90bhp output as well as a more powerful dCi 110 and TCe 120, though the latter pair are only available at the top of the Captur range.

Our tested model featured the TCe 90, which may not boast much in the way of performance but is both enjoyable and adequate to drive as well as being usefully frugal.

You may not be able to return Renault’s claimed average fuel consumption of 52.3 miles per gallon but our own principally urban return was pretty reasonable at 44mpg.