A SWEET CAR NAMED DEZIR

摘要

The stunning DeZir concept marks a seachange in design philosophy for its maker. As Matt Saunders finds out, Renaults will never be the same again. Laurens van den Acker is a car designer with timing that's just as immaculate as his sketching. Just over a year ago he replaced Patrick le Quement as Renault's vice-president of corporate design. At the time, Renault was in the doldrums after a year of bad economic tidings and slow sales; its design department, in particular, was in dire need of new energy, direction and purpose. Van den Acker has spent the past year providing those much-needed intangibles, and the car pictured here is the evidence. This is the DeZir concept: a 4.2m, midengined, all-electric sports car expressly intended to prove that cars from this new, reinvigorated Renault can be - will be -genuinely appealing.