Exclusive: Laurens van den Acker to replace Patrick le Quément at Renault

The wheels of change are continuing to turn within the automotive design industry, with yet another new appointment being made at the director level. According to industry insiders, Laurens van den Acker is set become the new Design Director at Renault when Patrick le Quément retires later this year.

One of the most pre-eminent car designers in the world, Patrick le Quément began his design career at Simca, worked at Ford for 17 years and did a brief stint at Volkswagen before taking the top design job at Renault. During his career, he has been responsible for the Ford Cargo and Sierra sedan as well as the Renault Espace, Scenic, Avantime, Vel Satis, Twingo and Megane among a slew of other vehicles. He was also in charge of the Initiale and Argos concept – a car that influenced the Audi TT.

Le Quément has been a member of Renault's board of management and has chaired the Joint Design Policy Group, a common Renault-Nissan design body, since it was founded in 1999. Over the last 22 years his contribution to automotive design has elevated Renault and resonated within the design industry, but French law dictates that le Quément, 64, retire this year.

Filling his rather large shoes will be van den Acker, a man that became one of the youngest design directors in the world when he took over the top job at Mazda from Moray Callum in 2006. Credited for having spearheaded the Nagare design language which saw Mazda enter a new era during his tenure as General Manager of the design division, van den Acker directed the overall design of all Mazda's global products from the company's world headquarters in Hiroshima, Japan. He resigned from that post at the end of last month.

Prior to joining Mazda, van den Acker held a series of positions at Ford, Volvo, SHR Perceptual Management and Audi AG. Some of the most notable pre-Mazda vehicles he was involved in creating include the Ford Bronco, Ford 427, Model U, 24/7, Ford GloCar and Ford MA concept vehicles, as well as the Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner production cars.

Van den Acker, who began his career as a lead designer at Design System srl in Turin, Italy, graduated from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands with a Masters in Engineering from the Faculty of Industrial Design.

By Eric Gallina