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 Fiftie 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 Quément’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 Citroen 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.
