INTERVIEW

SWAP MEET

Aston Martin’s and Renault Group’s designers rarely, if ever, get to drive each other’s cars. JAMES ATTWOOD makes it happen

Laurens van den Acker switched from Mazda to Renault in 2009, becoming chief design officer across the group in 2023.

PHOTOGRAPHY MAX EDLESTON

“Today, the level of design that you find in both premium and popular cars is nearly equal”

Aston Vantage embodies automotive aspiration while Renault 5 is a car for the people

Van den Acker would relish the chance to design a luxury model

can. When travelling I always book an entry-level hire car just to get the base experience.

LA We’ll drive what we call the ‘golden car’ – the car we have as a benchmark – and lots of competitors from the class. We’re not in Aston’s league, although with Alpine it’s becoming more interesting, and we’re starting to drive cars from premium and sports car brands.

AC Even when it’s in a different segment, are there things you learn when driving another car?

MR Completely. In the R5 I spent a lot of my time checking out screen integration, the gap and flush of material change, materiality sections, detail changes and so on. You enjoy driving, but you spend your time looking at material finishes. But we’re fanatical, aren’t we? We go a little bit crazy. I’m looking for anything.

LA The level of car you can get for the money now is incredible. Our idea was to get dream cars on the road. When [former Renault CEO] Luca de Meo came [in 2021], he didn’t want a difference between the promises we make and the cars we deliver. With the R5 we’ve never done a car where we’ve tried to be so close to the prototype. We really went for the last 5%. It’s like in Formula 1: those last few per cent have 50% of the impact. With car design there are now more possibilities than ever: this is a golden age for car design.