Renault Arkana - Practicality, comfort and boot space

It’s hard to gauge the Renault Arkana’s size in pictures, but it rivals the Peugeot 408, Cupra Formentor and Toyota C-HR, as a mid-size SUV with coupe-like styling. This means it’s a pretty practical car, offering plenty of interior space to comfortably fit four people, plus a big boot for all their stuff. 

Sometimes models that are based on SUVs but have a more coupe-like look, can be less practical than their plain SUV cousins, so it’s good to know that the Arkana mixes style and space quite well. The Arkana also offers a commanding driving position like you’d expect in an SUV and gives you a good view of the road ahead. However, rear visibility is hampered by the sloping rear windscreen, and because there’s no wiper back there, it can quickly become dirty from any rain, dirt or dust that rolls off the roof. So you’ll have to get used to cleaning it yourself.

Interior storage is something of a mixed bag, too; the door bins are quite narrow, and the cubby under the central armrest is deep, but not very long or wide. The space below the climate controls can accommodate even the largest of today’s smartphones, although that’s about it. Back-seat passengers do get storage nets for their odds and ends, plus their own set of air vents, two USB-C charging ports and a 12V socket.

Size

The Arkana uses the same CMF-B platform as the Renault Captur small SUV, but at 4,568mm long and 1,821mm wide, it’s quite a bit larger than that car. For context, the Captur is 4,227mm long and 1,797mm wide, so the Arkana is only slightly wider overall, but quite a bit longer. Plus, at 1,576mm tall, the Arkana provides a high driving position that will appeal to some buyers.

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Leg room, head room & passenger space

The size of the Arkana not only gives it presence, but means there’s plenty of room inside. There's a lot of space up front, while we reckon you’ll fit two six-foot passengers in the back with ease. They won’t struggle for headroom, despite the sloping roofline, and there’s space under the front seats for their feet. Legroom isn’t quite as generous though, and the large hump in the floor means you'd struggle to accommodate a fifth passenger.

Boot

The boot space in the Arkana is reasonable for a coupe-SUV of this size. Despite the sloping roofline and Renault needing to stash batteries under the floor, there’s 480 litres of luggage capacity with the rear seats up and if you fold them down this expands to 1,263 litres. If you need more luggage capacity, the 408 can carry up to 536 litres of stuff with the rear seats in place and 1,611 litres with them folded away.