Thirty years ago, the Initiale concept car defied time and revived the great tradition of the French sedan. Timeless, it changed the world’s view of Renault design. Unfortunately, it failed to influence the manufacturer’s large production sedan.
Three decades already! Those born after the year 2000 may not be familiar with this flamboyant concept car designed by Florian Thiercelin, and brought to production in a single (in every sense of the word) unit by Jean-François Venet, then in charge of concept cars at Renault. Both, who have sadly since passed away, left an indelible mark on the history of Renault design. On the history of automobile design. For all those who have only known the third millennium until now, this program must be put into context. Climb aboard our time machine and travel back in (good) time…
One month before the presentation of the Argos concept car at the 1994 Geneva Motor Show, the confidential development schedule for the Z06 prototype above arrived in the form of an A3 table on the desks of Patrick Le Quément, Martine Chevillot, Antony Grade, Michel Jardin, Jean-Paul Manceau, Jean-François Venet, Jean-Marie Souquet and Piero Stroppa. We learn that the first sketches will be presented in March 1994, that the choice of style theme will be made in mid-April and that the first 1/5th scale models will begin that same month of April. At the same time, in the model workshop, the Clio II, which will be marketed in 1998, is in full swing… As for the Peugeot 206, it does not yet exist. So much for the context.
The first full-scale realization of the Z06 concept car was scheduled for June 1994, with a styling freeze in October, almost a year before the concept was unveiled at the 1995 Bagatelle elegance competition. But what is the Z06? We know this concept car by the name of Initiale Paris, but let’s listen instead to Patrick Le Quément, below, who was Renault’s head of industrial design.
“Once the project was launched, as remarkable as I found the R25 was in the history of high-end Renault, the Safrane, launched two years earlier, lacked interest. I am in a context where I want to promote the spirit of French coachbuilding. I have written a lot about the values of French-style luxury and, inevitably, I enjoyed carrying out this Z06 project of a large Renault sedan with a great deal of autonomy.”
While behind the scenes there is already talk of a renewal of the Safrane, which has just been given a twin-turbo version and a Baccara finish, the Initiale concept car lays the foundations for a potential line of development. It is a sumptuous “French-style” sedan that stands up in our territory to the… Safrane, Citroën XM and Peugeot 605! The Initiale has a low architecture (“I fought to have its proportions recognized, which are essential in the luxury segment,” Le Quément would later say), with a muscular engine hood that plunges down onto a front end with virtually no grille.
The nose of the Initiale is inspired by that of the Renault 40 CV of the 1920s. On either side, two nostrils allow for the cooling of an engine that is not insignificant: it is a derivative of the 3.5-liter, 392-hp V10 RS7 designed by Renault Sport, found in the Williams FW17 F1 driven by Damon Hill and David Coulthard. But when you lift the huge bonnet, the Initiale is more a work of art than a track beast! The sides of the concept are subtly worked, with very flat areas that feed into very generous shoulders with a clean edge. There is something of the Facel Vega here.
The glazing is understated, also practically flat, while the design of the stern will serve as a strong benchmark for numerous studies that will be outlined in the mid-1990s. The tailgate window draws the side of the body in a “V” shape and, abruptly here too, falls onto a flat trunk from which the relatively thin rear lights emerge. The tailgate offers an interesting kinematic, since it slides over the roof when opening, thus minimizing its deployment and allowing it to be opened in tight parking lots.
The style is strong and self-sufficient – touches of chrome are rare – to express a presence and a presence unprecedented in the world of high-end. We owe this magnificent stroke of the pencil to Florian Thiercelin*, then a young designer entering an exceptional creative phase: three years later, in 1998, he would also sign the VelSatis concept car for the brand’s centenary! Le Quément explains that “it was indeed his first baby and his first design was accurately reproduced with the help of Jean-François Venet” (below)
*Read the moving tribute from Caroline Thiercelin, Florian’s wife, here: https://lignesauto.fr/?p=37274
Thirty years after the birth of this concept, a major question remains: why was such a creator not supported and pushed towards greater responsibilities? A devastating illness took Florian away in December 2023. He disappeared and with him, some secrets too. The Z06 concept car was nevertheless born under a lucky star, because its other father, Fabio Filippini, created a flamboyant interior that was fairly close to industrialization. This was intentional, because Patrick le Quément made no secret of his desire to use Initiale as a blueprint for the renewal of the Safrane.
On board, Fabio Filippini expresses the quintessence of the French spirit and a certain lightness, as Le Quément acknowledges: “Fabio is a great friend, and he designed this interior, which remains one of the most beautiful ever made. We discover seats that are inspired by Charles Eames’ armchairs, and all this is calculated, intentional. Like the champagne flutes made of sandblasted glass. This car was designed as a French luxury car, but also as a Renault!” This Initiale concept car, still relevant in terms of design thirty years later, was born in 1995, the year of the first generation of Mégane, built with ellipses and curves.
The complete opposite of the Initiale. This concept car was to have unexpected repercussions at… Mercedes. First of all, Bruno Sacco, head of style for the German brand, fell under its spell, then the entire management fell under that of Le Quément, to the point of wanting to poach him to replace Sacco (below) when he left in 1999. And then it was designer Murat Günak, who had rejoined the Mercedes design center in 1998, who wrote a note to his friend Le Quément, to let him know that the theme of the Initiale was already in the German manufacturer’s plans and that he had to change it for the identity of his future models!
Internally, the Z06 concept car did not have the expected follow-up. The Safrane renewal project should logically have been inspired by it, but in the mid-1990s, everything conspired against this program. There was the privatization of the Régie, which was looming in 1996, and in September 1995, Rémi Deconinck, head of the exploratory vehicle design department in the vehicle engineering division since 1993, succeeded Jacques Cheinisse as head of Renault products.
And he clearly does not share the same enthusiasm for the future Safrane being as close as possible to the Initiale concept car, unlike Patrick Le Quément. Moreover, the latter’s workload has increased tenfold after his appointment as head of the quality department, in addition to his position as director of Industrial Design. Not to mention that Louis Schweitzer, president of Renault since 1992, is preparing a nice coup with the Alliance with Nissan, which requires huge investments. Instead of building the long-hoped-for revival, the Initiale concept car spells the end of hopes of seeing the French luxury sedan industrialized… Officially, that’s where the story ends. Unofficially, LIGNES/auto reveals the secrets of the unprecedented continuation of this vast program for the large Renault sedan.
THE SECRETS OF THE X73 PROGRAM…
In the 1990s, Renault was seen to be stringing together concept cars like magnificent pearls. Subtly distributed over the years, ranging from emotion to intelligence, from sportiness to exoticism, the Laguna (1990), Scénic (1991), Racoon (1993), Argos (1994) and Initiale Paris (1995) guided the steps of all Renault designers towards mass-produced products with a strong concept. And they inspire many of the designers of competing makes. These concepts revive the talent for conceptual invention that Renault displayed in the 1960s, right through to the 1980s, with the R4, R16, R5 and even the R25 and Espace.
In this wonderful story, there is an X73 program that wants to draw on the conceptual and aesthetic achievements of the Initiale Paris to bring to life the production model that will become the VelSatis in March 2001. In 1995, the Initiale concept car effectively laid the initial foundations for a concept capable of taking over from the Safrane. The timing was perfect, since at that time the Initiale fitted perfectly into the renewal schedule, and took shape to express the desire to design a top-of-the-range French-style sedan, different from the German models.
The first stumbling block in the project came when the management decided to swap the replacement of the Safrane with that of the Laguna, even though it was launched a year later, in 1993. This second generation of the Laguna arrived in 2000, pushing back the replacement of the Safrane, which was not yet called VelSatis, by more than a year. Patrick Le Quément and his teams seized this opportunity to launch the new concept car planned for the 1998 centenary, towards an expression of French-style high-end. The future large Renault X73 sedan will therefore have to take advantage of this time lag to draw on both the Initiale concept car (above in the foreground) and the VelSatis concept of the centenary (above in the background in the center) presented in 1998.
Even before this VelSatis concept car left the Italian workshop of G-Studio at the end of July 1998, it was still in the form of a full-scale 1:1 model and, as early as January of that year, was heading for the model workshop where the two proposals selected for the X73 production project were then being produced. Two completely different proposals, above in the form of two clay models. One is the result of the desire of the design team led by Le Quément to create a low, status car with a style reminiscent of the French post-war Facel-Vega, materialized by a 1:1 scale model above left…
The other is the result of studies by the product department headed by Rémi Deconinck. It is based on a high hatchback architecture, above right. A nonsense when you remember that the Espace (a high-roof minivan) is already in the range! Patrick Le Quément confirms that this period is rather complicated. “Since 1995, following the Initiale, I have been putting my teams to work on 1/5th scale models for a production car. We had perfectly synchronized the timing of the concept and the production car so that the Initiale would have a strong impact on the sedan. In my mind, it had to look as much as possible like the 1995 concept car.”
It was in that year that Patrick Le Quément took charge of “quality” at Renault, in addition to his position as director of industrial design. Inevitably less present with his creative troops, he had less time to devote to the X73 program. Just as Renault was reversing the production schedules of the Laguna and VelSatis, to the detriment of the latter, a change at the head of the product department was about to change everything.
In September 1995, Rémi Deconinck, head of the exploratory vehicle design department in the vehicle engineering division since 1993, succeeded Jacques Cheinisse as head of Renault products. As is sometimes the case with car manufacturers, the ‘product’ and ‘design’ departments are not always on the same wavelength. A mild understatement.
The eternal conflict between engineers (Rémi Deconinck, an engineer from the Institut supérieur des matériaux et de la construction mécanique, joined Renault in 1976) and designers is still alive and well. A situation exacerbated then, since design was integrated into the general management committee, which is not the case for the product. Has a certain jealousy arisen from this situation? The fact remains that the product logically benefits from the design boss letting his guard down at that precise moment to impose his specifications for a high-end car.
Patrick Le Quément notes that Louis Schweitzer puts a relative distance between the two of them, because internally, many people feel that the design director is too close to the president. Decisions on this program are made in committee, without the product being present, and it is Georges Douin who instructs Le Quément to pass the information on to Rémi Deconinck!
“It was an unbearable situation. So as not to offend anyone, Louis Schweitzer seemed to make one decision in my favor and another in favor of the product. There was an outcry and Deconinck pushed for the project to be based on a high architecture. Once the case was heard, it was obvious that the car was going to suffer from a complicated weight distribution, with a long hood and a rear that was too short, all with a car that was too tall…“ When Rémi Deconinck was appointed, the official press release announced that his role would be ”to analyze Renault’s product offering in order to make recommendations for its future development in markets outside Europe.”
The majestic 1998 centenary concept car above exacerbated the lack of understanding when the production sedan was presented. The commercial failure of the VelSatis therefore leaves one question unanswered: what would have happened if it had been based on the architecture recommended by the industrial design team? You can’t rewrite history…
