Patrick le Quément, 22 years at Renault by Peter Stevens

The chance to listen to Patrick le Quément talking very informally about his time as director of design at Renault was a great reminder of just how brave the previously conservative and state-owned company became following his appointment.

He inherited the Renault 19 and 21 models as well as the aging Renault 5; production had been transferred to Slovenia in 1990 following the launch of the not totally inspiring Clio. The Clio, which sold very well, used a strange but popular TV advertising campaign based on the relationship between ‘Papa' and his supposed daughter ‘Nicole'. Nicole would sneak away in the family Clio whilst her father was pretending to be asleep; as soon as she was gone he would dash off to meet his mistress. You can watch this on YouTube; nothing to do with Patrick but a lot to do with helping the slow sales at Renault.

One of the first things that le Quément did on arriving at Renault was to instigate a series of show cars in order to push the public perception of the company's image ahead of that of Renault's competitors.

The first concept, the 1990 ‘Laguna', was unveiled at the Paris Auto Show. A new surface language was presented to future customers who could then see that design direction develop through the 1994 ‘Argos' before the bold ‘Initiale' Concept of 1995 signaled a dramatic new futuristic style, that was followed by the ‘Vel Satis' and ‘Koleos' concepts of 1998 and 1999.

Unlike many show cars, the design language of these vehicles became production realities with both the Vel Satis and Avantime launched in 2001. It now looks like an unwise decision to launch both vehicles at the same time since they were seen as competitors, although the Avantime, still one of my favorite design statements, was described by Renault as a "Coupéspace" to differentiate it from the four-door executive saloon, as the Vel Satis was described.

The Vel Satis replace the mind-numbingly dull Safrane that was launched in 1992 to deafening silence. In 2002, Automobile Magazine in America said of the Avantime: "Le Quement is clearly an outside-the-box thinker, and the product of his vision is a fascinating exercise, but American buyers' utilitarian expectations of the one-box shape just don't jibe with the decadence and frivolity of a grand-touring coupe". Even for a BMW X6 these days?

It came as something of a surprise to learn that the little Twingo, launched in 1992 is still one of le Quément's best liked projects; a simple small car with good interior space and a friendly face made it a huge sales success even though it was only sold in left-hand-drive form.

1994 gave us the radical ‘Argus' roadster and in 1996 the ‘Fiftey' was used as a celebration of the fifty years since the launch of the little rear-engined Renault 4CV; a cute retro homage to the first truly new production car to come from the company after the Second World War. Renault resisted the temptation to put the car into production, unlike VW, Mini and Fiat.

In 2004 we were shown the ‘Fluence' concept and the little known Renault ‘Wind' roadster and in 2008 the Megane Coupe Concept was followed by the ‘Zoe' all electric concept that was finally introduced for production in a slightly less radical form in 2012; Patrick le Quement's final product for Renault.

It is always both interesting and valuable to look back at the development of a company's design style because it is only with the passing of time that we can see how influential that style has been. In the case of Renault, the introduction of brave concepts such as the Avantime and dramatic production cars such as the Megane series pushed their French competitors Peugeot and Citroën extremely hard and without doubt caused both Ford and Opel to reconsider their design strategies. Just look at the dates when these cars were first shown and think of what was contemporary with them.

Peter Stevens Design

This post was re-published with the kind permission of Peter Stevens, one of Britain's most well-known and sought-after automotive and industrial designers. For more of his insights head over to his Facebook page.