Renault will unveil a sport-car concept later this year that will begin a new series of brand-defining concepts, its design chief, Laurens van den Acker, said.
The Dutch executive launched a fresh design direction for Renault with the DeZir sports car in 2010. The DeZir was the first in a series of six concept cars that previewed van den Acker's proposals to change the appearance of Renault's lineup.
"We will do it all over again," van den Acker told Automotive News Europe.
The new concepts will follow the 'stages of life' sequence just like his previous concepts, with the sports car representing falling in love. "It will not be very practical but love isn’t," van den Acker said.
The sports car concept will debut at the Paris auto show in October. The concept likely will not preview a production car, just as the DeZir didn't. However most of van den Acker's concepts have translated into production cars.
The latest-generation Scenic minivan, which was unveiled at the Geneva auto show earlier this month, was directly informed by the family-orientated R-Space concept revealed at the 2011 Geneva show.
The Captur concept shown in 2011 became a production subcompact SUV with the same name.
The Captur's success in a fast-growing segment has helped Renault to rebound from a five-year low of just under 800,000 sales in Europe in 2013 to 970,014 last year to make it the No. 3 brand by vehicle sales behind Volkswagen brand and Ford, according to figures from JATO Dynamics market researchers.
Same face
Van den Acker said there would be no significant redesign of the brand's new face with the grille dominated by an oversized Renault badge. "It took us so long to find a face. I’m not sure we could go through the agony again," he said.
