How did you design an automobile in the 1970s? Working methods, terminology, tools, in a vintage video, Gaston Juchet, the father of the Renault 14, explains everything to us. It is also the occasion to compare with the way of doing things today.
Today, an automobile is largely designed by computer, with virtual reality helmets and many digital models, but how did the skilled people work fifty years ago? Let’s go back to this time, with comments from Gaston Juchet who orchestrated the birth of the Renault 14.
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The video taken from the archives of the National Audiovisual Institute (INA) sets the scene as follows: ” before being born in the factories under the presses and on the chains, it must be said that this car slowly took shape in the design offices and on the drawing boards ”. A preamble which brings Gaston Juchet, who was the head of Renault’s automotive styling department from 1965 to 1975, to detail the genesis of the Renault 14. The sedan that was not yet called compact arrived on the market in 1976. Mr. Juchet specifies: “ the very first phase in the study of a car consists of the market study, a forecast study carried out by the product management which takes place 5 to 6 years before the car goes into series production ”.
Gouache drawings, plasticine models
Therefore, one wonders when does the style begin? Who is involved, and in what order? Gaston Juchet says that “ styling begins approximately six months after delivery of this document (Editor’s note the forecast study) “And to add,” the first work is carried out by the architecture section before the project (Editor’s note: today it looks like the phase advance), it is a design office which carries out the bodybuilder plan ”. Gaston Juchet, who became Renault styling director from 1984 to 1987, explains, “ the style work in itself first includes a sketch phase, a phase of fairly free research of ideas in the form of perspectives or elevation sketches (Editor’s note: full profile drawing, at scale 1/10e or 1/5e), the drawings are made in pastel pencil, in gouache ». If the tools have evolved today and the designers have left aside gouache and brushes in favor of the graphic palette – see our video below -, the creative process remains essentially the same.
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Just like the work hand in hand between the stylists and the engineers which remains in place today. Gaston Juchet evokes: “ a first selection internal to the style is then made in order to begin the second phase which is the volume research via small models at 1/5e in plasticine. This work lasts several weeks. The design office continues to work in parallel and indicates modifications to be made on the models. The latter are also the subject of aerodynamic studies carried out in a wind tunnel where the main components and in particular the drag are measured ”. An aerodynamic engineer by training, Gaston Juchet is particularly sensitive to it.
Comes the green light from management
If we look at the schedule, we are four and a half years before the vehicle is released, i.e. six months after receipt of the provisional study. It is then that the first proposals are made by the style to the general management. In this presentation, there are real scale elevations so that the “Renault bosses” can fully appreciate the proposals made by the stylists. Gaston Juchet confides that “ in the best of cases, the general management chooses one of the themes, most often it chooses two or three ”. He adds, ” for 1/5 scale modelse retained, all the points are recorded and returned to the bodywork design office which will then draw a large plan at scale 1, the outlines of the future car. These lines will be used for the technical study of the bodywork but also for the study of cost prices, it is at this time that the execution of a scale 1 model made in plaster also begins ”.
The burst interior style
” At the same time, when the broad outlines of the large plan are drawn, we begin to materialize the driving position and the entire interior of the car, the position of the seats, the steering wheel, the controls, the volume of the boot, the width of the interior. of the cash register “, says Gaston Juchet. Apart from the habitability model, Gaston Juchet indicates: “ support models for the dashboard, door panels and upholstery are made according to the same logic as for the bodywork : sketch, and a research phase at scale one ”. Compared to today where the interior design is an overall coherence with common furniture throughout the cabin, at the time, the work was much more fragmented with scattered elements. Indeed, the sheet metal of the body was often visible inside, and de facto, the storm doors were simple recessed rectangular panels.
Aerodynamics with bits of string?
When the choice of style is specified, we make a three-tenth scale model for the aerodynamic study (in wood with woolen threads glued to the bodywork) which is used to refine the coarser measurements made on the 1/5 scale model.e. Gaston Juchet adds: “ when the scale 1 models are finished, a new presentation to the general management is organized, most often outdoors, in nature. The presentation is supported by a number of documents which set out the technical difficulties encountered and also a first idea of cost prices ”.
We are then two and a half years before the launch of the vehicle, the style is definitely chosen, the Unisurf machine (Editor’s note: these are the very first beginnings of computer-aided design) intervenes to record all the points and all the curves of the car. She will transpose them mathematically to make a model machined by a numerically controlled milling machine. The Renault styling manager adds: “ it is the machine control model which becomes the master for the control of industrial tools ”.
(Editor’s note: this crucial step remains relevant today). Gaston Juchet also indicates that “ during this time, rolling prototypes were made which are tested for safety, handling and performance ”. The Renault 14 won the Grand Prix for industrial aesthetics, which allows Gaston Juchet to conclude the report with the following sentence: ” Functionality and rationality can generate beauty ”. Too bad that advertisers then nicknamed the Renault 14: the pear, its commercial career could have been quite different.
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