Renault's 1998 Vel Satis Concept Car

Automobile styling has been "internationalized" for several decades.  Back when I was young, American cars looked American, British cars usually seemed British, Italian cars Italian, and so forth.  Those distinctions were fading by the 1960s, in part because Italian designers such as Pinin Farina and Giovanni Michelotti were hired by the likes of Nash and Triumph to style production cars.  By the 1970s the great Giorgetto Giugiaro's ItalDesign firm had its hand in the design of cars from as far away as South Korea.

One rear-guard attempt to preserve a national design feeling was France's Vel Satis executive car by Renault.  In 2013 I wrote "Renault's Not-So Vel Satis Adventure" that dealt briefly with it and its concept version.

The man behind the design was Patrick Le Quément, who became Renault's Vice President, Corporate Design in 1987.  As this Wikipedia link notes, although Le Quément was French-born, he was raised and educated in England.  Much of his early car styling experience was at Ford's British subsdiary as well as in Germany at Volkswagen.

That said, his early efforts are Renault had to do with creating a French look to Régie Nationale des Usines Renault styling.  An important part of that was the Vel Satis concept car's design.

By the way, Wikipedia notes: "The name Vel Satis is a portmanteau of Velocity and Satisfaction."

By the time the concept car appeared, the "Frenchness" of the Citroën Traction Avant and DS 19 was well as Peugeot's 1930s 302s and 402s was long past.  I suppose the concept's 1989 Frenchness lies in the fact that the design was different, distinct, compared to what was common at the time.  And yes, some details seem to be examples of French la logique.

Photos below are all probalby via Renault.

Gallery

Frontal air intakes seem too small, and I don't notice a chin-level intake.  That said, it was powered by a transverse-mounted V-6 motor that required a radiator.  Perhaps it wasn't driven long enough to overheat.  Or else there was a hidden source of air to cool the radiator.

Rear styling has a completely different theme from the frontal.

Simple fender line.  Largely flat sides.  Round wheel openings.  Very basic design components.

This profile image shows the rather odd (French?) proportions.  Long, slanted hoodline and frontal overhang.  Minimal rear overhang and a chopped-off roofline at the rear that contrasts with a rounded lower rear body.  That rounding corresponds to the round aft wheel opening.

This shows the passenger greenhouse sculpting.  The crease begins at the fender front, becomes the A-pillar, then flattens and transitions to side window upper framing, and finally wraps around to become upper framing of the backlight window.  Interesting, maybe French la logique.

The short, rounded aft body is echoed by the curved backlight with its contrasting flat roof.  The trunk lid is necessarily tiny.

View of the car in fairly normal lighting.  An interesting design, more intellectual than attractive.