A graduate of the Strate design school in Paris, David Durand started his career at Renault Group as an exterior designer and worked his was up from there. In 2020, he was named Dacia Exterior Design Director, before being appointed overall Dacia Design Director two years later. It’s unusual to come across someone who has stayed at the same company for such a long time, but this has given David the opportunity to oversee some of the automotive industry’s most interesting vehicles from Dacia’s newest Bigster SUV to the Dacia Hipster concept car. Here we talk to him about his work, his love of cars old and new, being motorcycle mad and finding freedom in the outdoors…
I have an amazing job.
I like that, at the same time, I’m thinking about projects that are about to hit the road and I also have to think of projects that are 6-10 years ahead, to define a big proportion of what’s coming next – the main trends in the automotive future. How will people evolve? This is very exciting: we can’t apply the same recipe as today in the future – it won’t work. We always have to make this stretch between the present and the future.
If a design isn’t frightening today, it will be boring tomorrow.
There is a lot of politics. You can have the best dream car in your head, then the company will spend millions, sometimes billions on the programme. So to be sure they are choosing the right design, you can imagine that we have to make the best drawings, videos, illustrations that we can, to convince our stakeholders that we are going in the right direction: this makes sense, this is responding to our customers, this is advanced enough to be right in the future.
I started at Renault [Dacia’s parent company] and worked my way up to the job I have now
I don’t know if I’ll stay for my whole career, but I’ve never had the feeling of being at the same desk for 30 years. We have design studios all over the world – I had the chance to work in Barcelona for a year, in South Korea for a year, in Brazil for six months, in the centre of Paris in a little laboratory studio for three years. I had the chance to develop three cars for the Indian market, so I travelled a lot there. The challenges were always different year after year and I managed to take on more and more responsibility, on project after project.
Constraints fire my creativity.
I like the fact that we have a lot of constraints – it’s where you have to get most creative to manage them on price, visibility and platform. In terms of design to cost, we are working closely with engineering and all our suppliers to optimise every detail, in order to save all the money on features that aren’t useful for the customers. We really want to focus on what’s essential for the customers and get rid of the rest – all the details, decoration and gadgets that aren’t useful. On mainstream brands you have lots of those things but we are pushing in the other direction. If we really need it we will go for it, but if not we will get rid of it and save the money.
Dacia’s outdoorsy rebrand fits my lifestyle.
I was born in a little village in the Alps, 15 minutes away from a small ski resort. I had no neighbours and spent my time in the countryside, making cabins and things like that. I’ve kept this in my way of life, even though I now live in a suburb of Paris. I still love skiing and everything in the mountains. I love sailing – I’ve done two transatlantics and have experience in skippering on sailing boats – for me this is a unique way to feel ‘being on Earth’. You feel like a very little point in the middle of the big maps.
Inspiration can be everywhere.
My father is an architect, my mother is a painter, and my sister is a graphic designer. I think when you are a kid and you see people drawing at home, it feels like a natural way of living and it’s influenced me a lot. It’s also true that as inspiration for creativity you get ideas from every field – yes, I’m checking what other brands are doing, but if I get my inspiration from the others then I’ll just be a follower. I’m much more into art, furniture, architecture – every field that can feed me and give me ideas.
I’m crazy about motorcycles.
I love road trips, exploring countries via road, especially with motorcycles. I’m a bit crazy on motorcycles – I’m forbidden now from buying another one if I don’t sell one of the seven I have at home! I have road bikes, old bikes, plus enduro and dirt bikes.
I also love old cars.
In my daily life, I drive a Dacia Bigster – my company car. It’s super-cool, I love it. I designed it, so it’s perfect. I also have other cars – old cars. I have a Land Rover Series IIA from 1968 – there are three buttons inside. This is perfect for me: it gives me the feeling of being on holiday when I drive it. I don’t need more because I feel the air – you can open everything during summer. This is my best car.
I also have an old American van.
I use it for camping during the summer, with a motorcycle fixed at the rear. I enjoy the freedom of being able to go anywhere, sleep if I’m happy to be there and the next day say: “We can stay two days because it’s beautiful and we have things to explore.” Total freedom: moving at your own rhythm, sleeping when you want to sleep and bringing just what you need with you – a few books, enough food to quickly cook something and be able to sleep – this is the perfect life for me.
For more information see dacia.co.uk
