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Gaston Juchet () was a French engineer, known for being the chief designer of Renault between 1963 and 1975 and again between 1984 and 1987.
Gaston Juchet's interest in drawing begun when he was a boarder at the
Early life and career
Gaston Juchet's interest in drawing begun when he was a boarder at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand
The Lycée Louis-le-Grand (), also referred to simply as Louis-le-Grand or by its acronym LLG, is a public Lycée (French secondary school, also known as sixth form college) located on rue Saint-Jacques in central Paris. It was founded in the ...
in Paris. He graduated with engineering degrees from the École Centrale Paris. In 1958, after his military service, he joined Renault's research and development department as an aerodynamics engineer. His first work within the company was a facelifting for the Frégate. Later, he was the key developer of the project 115, which would become the Renault 16
The Renault 16 (R16) is a D-segment family hatchback produced by French automaker Renault between 1965 and 1980 in Le Havre, France. The Renault 16 was the first French winner of the European Car of the Year award.
Market placement
In the early 1 ...
. From 1963 onwards, he was one of the most important designers within Renault. In 1965, he was officially appointed chief of Renault Styling. During the following years, he participated in the design of various Renault cars such as the Renaults 12, 15, 17, 5 (although the 5 was mostly designed by Michel Boué), 6, 30, 20 and the Alpine A310
The Alpine A310 is a sports car built by French manufacturer Alpine, from 1971 to 1984.
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History
Dieppe-based Alpine, once an independent company specialising in faster Renaults, later a Renault subsidiary, established a fine competition ...
. In 1975, Robert Opron
Robert Opron (22 February 1932 – 29 March 2021) was a French automotive designer. He created or collaborated on numerous projects that became production cars for brands that included Simca, Renault, and Fiat. He is best known for his work at ...
took the direction of Renault Styling, and Juchet was made one of his assistants along with Jacques Nocher. When Opron left the company in 1984, Juchet became again chief designer until he was replaced by Patrick le Quément Patrick may refer to:
* Patrick (given name), list of people and fictional characters with this name
* Patrick (surname), list of people with this name
People
* Saint Patrick (c. 385–c. 461), Christian saint
*Gilla Pátraic (died 1084), Patrick ...
in 1987.
Juchet introduced modern methods of prototyping (UNISURF UNISURF was a pioneering surface CAD/CAM system, designed to assist with car body design and tooling. It was developed by French engineer Pierre Bézier for Renault
Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English; legally ...
) and Computer Aided Design
Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve co ...
(CAD) in the Renault design and favoured synergies with Italian experts such as Marcello Gandini
Marcello Gandini (born 26 August 1938) is an Italian car designer, known for his work with the automotive design house Gruppo Bertone, including his designs of the Lamborghini Miura, Countach, and the Lamborghini Diablo.
In a 2009 interview wit ...
, Giorgetto Giugiaro
Giorgetto Giugiaro (; born 7 August 1938) is an Italian automotive designer. He has worked on supercars and popular everyday vehicles. He was born in Garessio, Cuneo, Piedmont.
Giugiaro was named Car Designer of the Century in 1999 and inducted ...
and Sergio Coggiola and with the chief designer of American Motors
American Motors Corporation (AMC; commonly referred to as American Motors) was an American automobile manufacturing company formed by the merger of Nash-Kelvinator Corporation and Hudson Motor Car Company on May 1, 1954. At the time, it was the ...
(then a company associated with Renault), Dick Teague
Richard Arthur Teague (December 26, 1923 – May 5, 1991) was an American industrial designer in the North American automotive industry. He held automotive design positions at General Motors, Packard, and Chrysler before becoming Vice President o ...
.
Awards
Juchet won the French Grand Prix of Industrial Design in 1976.References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Juchet, Gaston 1930 births 2007 deaths Renault people French automobile designers École Centrale Paris alumni