As anyone who knows me will quickly confirm, I have a bit of a blind spot about car prices. They're usually the last thing I check, and I frequently drive a car for a week in complete ignorance of what it costs. This is not a problem as long as I eventually do the research before writing a test report, but it does mean that anyone who sees the car and asks me its price tends to get an answer in which the words "er" and "um" feature heavily.And so it was with the Laguna Sport Tourer Dynamique tested here. Someone asked me the dread question, and I had to come up with some kind of response. I guessed that it cost something like £22,000, or perhaps more. The questioner nodded, thinking this was a reasonable answer.But it turned out to be a substantial overestimate. List price for this particular car is in fact £19,350. I had been fooled into thinking that it was worth well over 10% more than the true figure. In my defence, I'd say that this is a fairly easy mistake to make.For a start, the current Laguna, launched in the UK in October 2007, is the most elegant-looking car to have been manufactured under that name, and it looks even better as a Sport Tourer (or estate as the rest of us call it) than as a saloon. It's also impressively comfortable - with one proviso which we'll get to shortly - and, my word, it's so quiet.There is quite definitely a diesel engine under the bonnet - the two-litre dCi unit available with various power outputs, in this case 150bhp - but its noise is so well-suppressed you could easily fool passengers into believing that it ran on petrol. But you know it can't, because it would take a diesel to combine the fabulous low-range power with fuel economy which remains resolutely on the high side of 40mpg.The Laguna's final major indication of refinement is its ride quality. Now, large French cars have traditionally been set up very softly, which has meant that they float gently over small bumps and wallow desperately over anything more serious. More generally, in the class of Laguna-sized cars (Mondeo, Vectra and what have you) there has been a tendency for individual models to grow larger and become more cumbersome to drive over the past 10 or 15 years.The Laguna bucks both trends. It soaks up most bumps very well (including those on a particularly treacherous piece of road near where I live) but remains sufficiently poised to tackle corners with unexpected gusto. For a lot of the time it feels almost like a luxury car, and although it wouldn't necessarily be your first choice if you needed something to take you across deserted country roads in a big hurry, it would tackle the job gamely if asked.A more serious requirement of this particular car is its ability to carry luggage. Renault's own figures are 508 litres with the rear seat in place, 1593 litres with it folded down. Both of these are improvements over the equivalent stats for the Laguna hatchback, but the estate versions of the Ford Mondeo, Vauxhall Vectra and Volkswagen Passat can all carry considerably more.However, it's difficult to avoid being impressed by Renault's Super-fold system. Each half of the split rear seat has two release levers, one beside the seat itself and one in the tailgate pillar. Pull one of these levers and the seat folds completely flat in about a second with virtually no physical or mental effort required from you. It's simple (or at least it appears to be, which is often an indication of excellent design), but it works extremely well.The only annoying aspect of the conversion from hatchback to estate is that Renault has not found a way for the rear end to look elegant while still retaining a decent amount of window space. There isn't enough glass, and the rear pillars are too thick, for the Sport Tourer to offer enough visibility for reversing.That is probably the car's most irritating flaw. The strangest is the lack of room for rear passengers. I tried to sit behind the driver's seat when it was set correctly for me, and I just couldn't do it - there wasn't enough space for me to get in there. Even with the seat moved several inches forwards it was a tight squeeze, and I wouldn't have wanted to travel any distance sitting like that.Admittedly I'm more than six feet tall, but even so it seems very odd that the Laguna is probably no better at carrying four large adults than, say, a Clio would be.The test car was in Dynamique trim, which is second from the bottom in a list of four. That means it gets a steering wheel with a flat bottom section (for no obvious reason other than to hint at Renault's F1 involvement), part-leather sports front seats (excellent), climate control, cruise control, front foglights and chrome trim detailing, none of which are available as standard in the entry-level Expression.All Lagunas use the Renault Card which replaces a conventional key. The car senses the card about your person and lets you open the doors and operate the push-button starter. Walk away from the car with the key still on you and it locks itself once you're more than a couple of paces away - and gives you a cheery toot on the horn while doing so, which might seem a lot less cheery if you arrived back home very late and were concerned about annoying the neighbours.It's an impressive system, and gives good entertainment value when you're showing it to people. I'm slightly concerned about the long-term reliability, though, and I can't help thinking that I'm just the sort of person who might in some way make a mess of the whole business, such as causing the Laguna to drive itself to Penzance while I was on holiday in Wales, or some such thing. This may, however, say more about me than it does about the car.Another thing common to all Lagunas is the electronic handbrake. In Dynamique S and Initiale versions this works automatically, but in the Expression and Dynamique you have to operate it yourself. This involves, for example, pressing the brake pedal before the switch will work, and while this isn't a terrible imposition in itself I couldn't help thinking that a straightforward mechanical handbrake like we had in the old days would have been just as convenient, slightly simpler and not at all subject to the risk of some future electrical hiccup. Engine 1995 cc, 4 cylinders Power 150 bhp @4000 rpm Torque 251 ib/ft @2000 rpm Transmission 6 speed manual Fuel/CO2 46.3 mpg / 160 g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 9.7sec Top speed 131 mph Price From £19381.00 approx Release date 04/01/2008
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