Was this chopped up Renault Trafic a lifestyle concept too far?

This is the Renault Trafic Deck’Up, a 2004 cut ‘n’ shut concept from the French carmaker that tried to ‘target outdoor leisure and adventure off the beaten track’ by modifying the 2002 International Van of the Year. 

Well the Deck’Up is 180mm shorter than the standard Trafic van, with 80mm chopped out of the wheelbase, but it’s 21mm wider for a sportier, more lifestyle-oriented stance. It has jacked up suspension, four-wheel drive, and a pick-up rear end that’s separated from the cabin by a glass shutter. Passenger seating can revolve and the rear seats can slide back into the pick-up bed. There are also two extra fold-down chairs in the back if the inside is full or someone has stepped in dog poo.

What, you mean you don’t spend your weekends skydiving on to a beach before a spot of surfing followed by a barbeque, before nipping into town and parking outside an expensive restaurant, pausing to look back admiringly at your do-everything steed? Shame on you, lazybones. Of course, if concept cars were truly aimed at the sort of lifestyles that everyday buyers lead you’d be able to sit in the back watching Netflix in your pants, with a discreet slot for delivery drivers to shove through your Chinese without you having to get up. That doesn’t play so well on social. 

It’s party central inside the Deck’Up – Euro-style, mind. The peach and beige colour scheme looks like it’s been taken straight from a German optician, while the seating arrangements have been designed for maximum flexibility. The silver deck with shiny spots gives the van a particularly festive vibe. You could imagine that a cool pope might even be interested in waving to the gathered throngs from here.

The glass shutter at the rear of the cabin is an inspired touch. With the glass shutter down the cabin remains light and airy while protected from the elements, but one press of a button and it retreats up into the ceiling. Combined with the pillarless side doors (that only open on the right-hand side of the van), the Deck’Up has maximum practicality in mind, for those rare occasions when your lifestyle adventures include humping flatpack furniture off a restive trolley in the windswept carpark of a Scandi superstore.

The craziness continues under the bonnet. Actually that’s a lie – it’s a 2.5-litre diesel pumping out 135bhp via a six-speed manual gearbox. Permanent four-wheel drive and raised suspension mean the Deck’Up is a genuine go-anywhere lifestyle ride. 

It was likely a punctuation issue, if nothing else. Look how the Kia Cee'd went from strength to strength after dropping its heinous mid-moniker apostrophe. People don’t want to buy aggressively over-punctuated vehicles. The Volkswagen Up! is an exception, because we all took a collective unspoken decision to ignore the exclamation mark. 

Perhaps they were intended to appeal to a core but cash-rich market of sexy ornithologists, or maybe Renault intended for its Deck’Up van to be used by private investigators stalking people from the middle of a field. It’s best not to ask too many questions of car manufacturers’ marketing departments, the answers will only terrify you.