We had a couple of the Renault Espace vans for rentals when we were over in France recently. The engine is a 3.0 liter, V6 diesel and it incorporates a six speed transmission. These little things actually will seat 7 somewhat comfortably, but don't think about putting any bags or carry-ons in the van when you try to put that many people in the thing, or you'll be carrying them on your lap.
The Renault Espace had a little "git-up and go" from the start, but it was a real pooch when you needed to jump on it in second or third gear.
One of the unique things about the Renault Espace was the way you started it up. First of all, there is no key. The "key" is a card about the size of a normal credit card that you insert into a space next to the stick shift. 
Once the card was inserted into the slot, you hit the "Start/Stop" button to start the car. The vehicle automatically went into the parking brake mode when you'd start it up.
I got to drive one day and it's a little weird to drive in France. No, you drive on the right, like you do in the States. But the yields and right-of-ways are a little confusing. Actually, you may be driving down a road and suddenly you come to an intersection where a road is coming in at angle. It could very well be that the road coming in at the angle has the right of way.
And the signs are a little confusing. I knew what the "yield" signs were all about, but I couldn't understand what the "no" with the blue inside meant. (Found out later that it meant no parking.)
Driving on the freeway system, or highway, was a little confusing since signs for exits seem to come up rather quickly, especially when you're going 90 kilometers (about 55 mph) or faster. Or signs to towns, such as Saint-Etienne, don't always take you to Saint-Etienne. Actually it took me a day to figure things out - both with the vehicle and with the directions - to make me feel comfortable enough to get around on my own.
We had to take the vans back on Thursday night, so our host, Dominic Baker (right) got one of my colleagues, Jon Baker (no relation to Dominic), and myself to follow him in the vans. He took off from the hotel like a bat out of hell, screaming down the street, around the roundabout, then down one of the main streets in Saint-Etienne. He got on it and passed a car and I followed suit, except I got hung up in the left lane and needed to turn right. I aggressively nudged over and got in behind Jon who was smart enough to stay put in the right lane.
We took a right and Dominic took off again up a hill. The Espace just wouldn't keep up his Volkswagen Passat. I was on Jon's tail and Dominic pulled over to the left lane and got into the left turn lane at the light. He turned when the light went yellow, Jon followed suit when the light turned red. I tried to follow, but got hung up by oncoming traffic - who, for some reason, didn't allow me to turn left when I had a red light and they had green.
I finally waited and turned left on a red light - hitting the median curb in doing so. Hey, it was a rental! And as I learned years ago, in times of need, you should treat all rental cars as off-road vehicles.
I did catch up to Dominic and John with some more wild driving through the side streets of Saint-Etienne and then ended up going the wrong way down an alley way to drop off the vans in front of the Hertz rental office. It was a large time to drive like that with a "devil-may-care" attitude behind the wheel.
But the hell of it is - they ALL drive like that in France. Signs and rules, be damned. You have to be overly aggressive or you're going to be going around and around the damn roundabouts for 15 to 20 minutes at a time. Streets are narrow, the highways (freeways) are curvy, and then you have to worry about how main streets must yield to people coming in from side streets.
I'm glad I've had years of driving experience in the Chicago area. It has certainly schooled me on how to properly drive in France they way their drivers do.
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