Launched at the 1995 Frankfurt Motor Show as a replacement for the Renault 19, the first Mégane carried over its predecessor’s floorpan, engines and transmissions under new, more rounded bodywork designed by Michel Jardin under Patrick Le Quément.[1] It introduced the “bird beak” front grille that would define Renault’s styling language for years, and it made safety a selling point in a way few C-segment cars had before: a pillar-mounted three-point belt for the rear middle seat, standard front pretensioners and load limiters, and a driver’s airbag were unusual specification for 1995. A Scénic-badged compact MPV derivative, launched a year later, was successful enough to become the standalone Renault Scénic.
Three trims are recorded here, spanning the 1.6, 2.0 and 1.9 dCi engines. The source’s own spec table gives every horsepower figure as plain “hp” with no PS or mechanical-horsepower qualifier, an ambiguity this catalogue resolves by reading it as PS, the near-universal European convention of the period, while recording in each figure’s note how much a mechanical-horsepower reading would move it. No torque, boot volume or kerb weight is published for these engines in the source.