{"id":44578,"date":"2026-05-06T12:39:50","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T10:39:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/?p=44578"},"modified":"2026-05-06T12:39:51","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T10:39:51","slug":"unseen-gaston-juchets-renault-rafale-1962","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/?p=44578","title":{"rendered":"Unseen: Gaston Juchet\u2019s Renault Rafale \u2013 1962"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Launched in 2024 \u2013 the year it even became the presidential car for the 14 July parade \u2013 the Renault Rafale was unveiled\u2026 at Le Bourget, the birthplace of part of French aviation history. The reason? Its name is derived from an aircraft, the famous Caudron-Renault Rafale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the 1920s, Renault developed engines not only for its cars, but also for trains and aeroplanes. In 1933, driven by his passion for aviation, Louis Renault bought Caudron to create the company Caudron-Renault, and a year later, the Rafale was born with the aim of competing in the market. To mark the launch of the Rafale model in 2024, 90 years after the birth of the eponymous aircraft, Renault recalls that \u2018the work of Marcel Riffard, the engineer who designed the Caudron-Renault Rafale aircraft, also influenced the design of the Nervasport and the \u00c9toile filante<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018Rafale\u2019 is therefore a fitting name for a model that sits at the top of the French manufacturer\u2019s range. But this name is not new for a Renault car. Two projects have adopted it: one was merely a sketch, whilst the other resulted in two full-scale models.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Let\u2019s start with the most unusual: the Renault Rafale Cabriolet, designed by Gaston Juchet in 1962. Pictured above is Juchet on the left, alongside Renault\u2019s boss in the early 1980s: Bernard Hanon. Gaston Juchet, head of design at Renault until Patrick le Qu\u00e9ment took over in late 1987, designed three particularly landmark Renaults: the 1965 Renault 16, the 1971 Renault 15\/17 duo and the 1984 Renault 25. Three iconic models spanning three different decades. This speaks volumes about the talent of this man (1930\u20132007), who was able to adapt his designs to societal changes for over a quarter of a century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It was on 1 May 1962 that Renault\u2019s head of design signed off on the second sketch of a convertible based on the Renault 16 concept studies. The May sketch, no doubt produced in Gaston Juchet\u2019s small studio in the attic of the family home (1 May, Labour Day, though clearly not for everyone\u2026), had been preceded in April 1962 by an initial green sketch of a Renault 16 convertible without the \u2018Rafale\u2019 name visible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gaston Juchet in his office at Renault Design. He will take this distinctive furniture home with him when he retires.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The design from May 1962, meanwhile, features the word \u2018Rafale\u2019 from the Caudron-Renault aircraft on its door (below). This makes sense in more ways than one. You will understand that this convertible was designed to allow four passengers to drive with the wind in their hair. But the other reason, far more personal and compelling, stems from Gaston Juchet\u2019s passion for aviation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For his 2+2-seater convertible concept, which stemmed from his work on the Renault 16 he had just designed, Gaston Juchet used the name \u2018Rafale\u2019, as seen above. As an aviation enthusiast, he was perfectly justified in doing so! From the very start of his career, even before he set foot in the design studio, Gaston Juchet created aeroplanes, modern architecture, hyperrealistic portraits and abstract paintings, showcasing his many talents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Painting by Gaston Juchet of the Leduc 022 prototype. Juchet family archives.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Among its many designs, we have chosen that of the French aircraft manufacturer Leduc: the 022 prototype with its mind-boggling design. The pilot sat in a fully transparent cockpit which, as it slid shut, enclosed him within this composite-material capsule. Behind the pilot was a 2,800 hp turbojet engine designed to enable the aircraft to approach Mach 2. A speed the aircraft would never reach. Leduc\u2019s prototype 022-01 is on display at the Air and Space Museum in Le Bourget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Juchet family archives<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Aircraft were a great passion of Gaston Juchet\u2019s from a very young age, as his son Jean-Michel recounts: \u201cAt the weekend, we would go to Civry to visit our grandparents, a little over 100 km from the western suburbs of Paris where we lived. Civry is close to the 279th Ch\u00e2teaudun Air Base (1934\u20132014). It was here that my father, Gaston, at the age of 14, witnessed the liberation of the village in August 1944.<\/em>” Later, Gaston Juchet almost naturally turned to studying engineering, specialising in aviation mechanics but also, and above all, in aerodynamics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A drawing by Gaston Juchet depicting the liberation of the village of Civry. He was 14 years old at the time\u2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With a background in aerodynamic engineering, Gaston Juchet joined R\u00e9gie Renault in 1958, before moving to the design department in the early 1960s. Jean-Michel Juchet recalls, \u201cafter Fernand Picard left the design department, Yves Georges and Claude Prost-Dame showed a particular interest in design and its development.<\/em>\u201d Gaston Juchet arrived in a department that he significantly overhauled until the late 1980s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Juchet family archives<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Below, we are welcomed by Jean-Michel Juchet, the eldest son of Gaston Juchet and brother to Henry, Laurent and Alain, in the great designer\u2019s studio, in the attic of the family home. Behind the armchair where Renault\u2019s head of design would sit when he came to work in his small private studio, there is a notable collection of paintings and model aeroplanes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo : Christian Martin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But Gaston Juchet was not the only one to revive the name \u2018Rafale\u2019 for a Renault car. During the development of the X29 project, which would give rise to the Renault 25 in 1984, the designer Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Venet (below), who had joined Renault\u2019s design team in 1977, proposed an aerodynamic model known internally as the Rafale. This model would remain in contention right up until the final design decision, competing directly with that of\u2026 Gaston Juchet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the end, it was Gaston Juchet\u2019s proposal that became the Renault 25, following a long period of constant changes to the specifications, which even affected the car\u2019s dimensions just a few months before production began! Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Venet\u2019s model, shown below, did not go unheeded and influenced the numerous aerodynamic studies carried out by Renault\u2019s various design studios.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Launched in 2024 \u2013 the year it even became the presidential car for the 14 July parade \u2013 the Renault Rafale was unveiled\u2026 at Le Bourget, the birthplace of part of French aviation history. The reason? Its name is derived from an aircraft, the famous Caudron-Renault Rafale. In the 1920s, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44536,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44578"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44578"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44596,"href":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44578\/revisions\/44596"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}