Executive Vice President of Corporate Design at Groupe Renault, Laurens van den Acker, has been awarded the prestigious Sturmey Award as part of the Autocar Awards 2019 at a ceremony held this evening at Silverstone, UK.
Named in honour of the founder of Autocar magazine, Henry Sturmey, the award recognises innovation and an individual who has brought the highest technical standards to his or her area of the automotive industry.
Speaking on the award for Van den Acker, Mark Tisshaw, Editor of Autocar, said: “Our winner this year is one of the industry’s greatest designers. He has transformed the look and feel of Renault's entire car and commercial range in just one generation so that they are widely noted as some of the most recognisable and beautiful vehicles on the road.”
“To make his thinking clear — and give us a great view of the future — he has produced a whole series of cleverly linked, forward-thinking concept cars. He has succeeded in making the future look very bright indeed. Our winner has made progressive design a cornerstone of every Renault.”
Speaking on the recognition by Autocar, Laurens van den Acker, Executive Vice President of Corporate Design at Groupe Renault, said: “I’m very honoured and grateful to receive this prestigious award from Autocar. This is an award for the entire team and I would like to dedicate it to them. I’m extremely proud of the team who continue to amaze me with their creativity and their passion. Designing beautiful, innovative cars is what drives us every day at Groupe Renault Design and this important recognition will motivate us even more in the future.”
van den Acker took the helm of Groupe Renault’s Design Department in 2009 with the ambition to build an attractive, powerful and coherent range of vehicles to boost the image of the Renault brand. Under his influence the teams at the Design Department renewed the entire range between 2012 and 2016.
Since then design has become a key selling point of Renault products and is consistently noted by customers as one of the main reasons for purchase. In 2016 TreZor, a concept-car revealed at the Paris Motor Show, was awarded three European prizes. Van den Acker has won the International Automobile Festival and GQ France awards for his work as well as “2016 Designer of the Year” from Autocar. Under his leadership, the Groupe Renault Design Department now comprises six creation centres worldwide and works with state-of-the-art design and digital visualization resources.
van den Acker also oversees the design development of the group’s three other brands, Dacia, Renault Samsung Motors and Alpine and on the 1st of April 2019 was appointed as a member of Groupe Renault’s Executive Committee.