Matra Avantime (for Renault) History

The Avantime was the last car Matra ever built. Styled by Renault's Patrick Le Quément and manufactured exclusively at Romorantin from mid-2001, it was a bold experiment: a full-size, high-roofed pillarless coupé with two enormous doors and a 2+2 interior, blending MPV headroom with grand tourer styling and convertible-adjacent openness. The aluminium spaceframe chassis was hand-assembled, making each car labour-intensive.

Commercial response was catastrophic. The niche vehicle found almost no buyers willing to pay its premium price for a concept they did not fully understand. Only 8,557 were built before the final Avantime left the Romorantin line on 18 April 2003 — the last vehicle ever assembled there.

The Avantime's failure was the proximate cause of Matra Automobiles' bankruptcy. With Renault unwilling to move production elsewhere and no new contracts available, Matra announced the closure of its automotive operations in February 2003. Pininfarina acquired Matra's engineering and prototype division in September 2003, ending nearly four decades of French sports-car and contract-manufacturing history at Romorantin.