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Australia is a big market for SUVs. Sales of SUVs and light commercial vehicles have continued to grow this year, while passenger-car sales are beginning to wane.

French importer Renault has been exclusively a marketer of passenger cars, but that will change when the new 'soft-road' Koleos (more here) goes on a sale in a few months.

"Products like Koleos will make us mainstream," says Rudi Koenig, Renault's MD in Australia.

Koenig acknowledges that Renault's standing in the country has been near invisible since the relaunch of the marque in 2001.

"The problem at the moment, most of the products we have, we deal with a sub-segment of a segment within the market -- and we've got 0.3 per cent of the market share overall. In any segment, we'd be lucky to have one per cent. Now we're appealing to a segment within that segment and we've got to break out of that.

"Koleos actually gives us a chance to really be a player within the small SUV segment. Now we're not expecting to sell a thousand a month, but we believe... it will almost double our volume," he says.

"For us, Koleos is the first product that gives us real volume opportunities, because with its global alliance sourcing, built on the Nissan X-TRAIL chassis -- all the four-wheel drive characteristics, which are class-leading -- with Renault design, Renault styling, Renault interior, it's a true Renault product.

"However it's built in Korea, at the Renault-Samsung plant, which is a Nissan Japanese-standard plant. So we've got the benefits of having it built outside France, as far as costing goes. We've got the benefits of having it a lot closer to Australia. It takes us four months to get some cars from Europe."

If Koleos can deliver the sales volumes Koenig expects, it will transform the fortunes of the French company in Australia and may pave the way for other mainstream models. That's a must for Renault, as there's a danger in vesting all the company's aspirations in just the one model without follow-up, so the Koleos will need to make a real splash when it arrives -- and that's in a tightly-contested market segment.

» Watch the Carsales Network's video on the Renault Koleos here

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