From February, the firm will no longer sell the Laguna range, including the Coupe, as well as the Wind roadster, both variants of the Modus and Espace and the Kangoo and Trafic passenger versions – a set of models that made up less than 10% of the company’s UK volume.

The Clio, Scenic, Megane and Twingo have been retained, alongside the introduction of four new electric cars towards the end of 2012, while a new Clio and crossover vehicles are due in 2013 and beyond.

Renault’s UK fleet boss Darren Payne (Inset) also added that Renault UK would also be pulling out of all fleet business except "true" fleet sales, apart from a small volume of van rental. It will result in the firm’s fleet share halving over the next year. Mr Payne said that the firm had taken the decision to only sell cars that were inherently profitable and not dependent on the strength of the pound against the euro to create margins, as well as pulling away from doing expensive fleet business just for the sake of volume.

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