Navara-based Renault ute in the works

The chunky Nissan Navara is about to get a French facelift to join the Renault family.

The re-bodied and rebadged ute is being fast-tracked into the Renault line-up and could be in Australian showrooms as early as the final months of next year.

The French connection is being forged as Hyundai and Kia both struggle to convince their head office in South Korea of the urgent need for a work-and-play pick-up to boost their rapid sales rise Down Under.

"Still nothing to report. We're still pushing but there is nothing in the plan," says Hyundai Australia chief operating officer John Elsworth.

But there is plenty happening in the French direction, with global styling boss Laurens van den Acker confirming details of his styling makeover.

"We're going to do it. For sure," van den Acker confirms to CarsGuide at the Paris motor show.

He also details the changes needed to ensure the latest Nissan Navara, only unveiled this year and being built in Thailand for Australian buyers, picks up DNA from the Renault gene pool.

"We have to make sure...that it's very different to Nissan. What we should do is share everything underneath and differentiate the visible parts." He says demand from Australia, where Renault is now the second-biggest global market for Renault Sport cars, helped swing the vote on the ute project.

"This opens up, because there are also South America and the US where 50 per cent of the market is pick-up trucks.

"So if you don't have it, then you don't play." Apart from the ute, Renault is also pressing ahead on expansion of its SUV line-up from today's Koleos, again tapping Nissan for the mechanical platforms used on the Qashqai, X-Trail and Pathfinder. 'We're very late, but thankfully the crossovers we are doing are quite successful. We are trying to share the platforms, so we're looking to the (Nissan-Renault) Alliance to share the platform," he says.

"Early next year we'll be launching the (compact) crossover, which is based on Qashqai. New Koleos will be the biggest, bigger than today, based on the Pathfinder." According to van den Acker, Renault is also going to try again for success with larger sedans in the Holden Commodore-Ford Falcon-Toyota Aurion size.

"It's an important segment to be in, for your image. If you don't have a (family) sedan you're not a real car company, in some way," he says.

"It is a segment under pressure but it holds your own." Without confirming it for Australia, he drops a solid hint in naming the factories that will build the newcomer.

"We will produce it in Korea and in Europe. Here (Europe) it is planned for 2016," van den Acker says."In the next two years we will roll out all the mid-sized and big ones."