Former Renault Design Boss Le Quement Takes to the Water

Just the Facts:

• Patrick le Quement, one of the world's most respected car designers, has a new passion: boats.
• This year will see the introduction of four new boat designs by le Quement.
• Le Quement's designs include the Outremer 5X, a modern 60-foot catamaran, followed later this spring by the unveiling of Garcia 54, an elegant 54-foot transoceanic trawler.

PARIS — Patrick le Quement, one of the world's most respected car designers, has a new passion: boats.

Le Quement retired in late 2009 from Renault, where he was widely viewed as Europe's most innovative and influential design boss. Since then, he has kept a relatively low profile — but that's about to change, le Quement tells Inside Line.

This year will see the introduction of four new boat designs by le Quement, including the launch in early February of the Outremer 5X, a modern 60-foot catamaran, followed later this spring by the unveiling of Garcia 54, an elegant 54-foot transoceanic trawler.

Outremer and Garcia are both members of the Grand Large Yachting group, which in 2010 retained le Quement to bring some of the design processes and practices from the auto industry to the luxury boat business.

Working from hand-drawn sketches, le Quement oversaw the exterior design of both the Outremer 5X and the Garcia 54, which ultimately were rendered with digital tools.

Le Quement, who was born in France and educated in England, brings broad experience from a 43-year career in automotive design, including stints with Ford, Volkswagen and Simca. At Renault he served as senior vice president of quality and corporate design, while holding a seat on the management committee.

Since retiring from Renault, le Quement has collaborated on several projects with the French naval architect VPLP Yacht Design — a partnership that began more than a dozen years ago when Renault and VPLP worked together on the Concept Cat for the 1999 Paris Boat Show.

Says le Quement of that early partnership: "We often worked in such adventures as I was convinced that we had to react to the natural tendency of becoming inbred in our automobile design work, hence the reason we did projects with Louis Vuitton, Tag Heuer, Ducati, VPLP (and) Mauboussin."

Inside Line says: Creativity and talent will always find an appropriate outlet.