In 1965 Renault unveiled their innovative new 16 at the Geneva Motor Show. With its novel two-box body shape and innovative equipment, the 16 was a thoroughly modern, avant-garde offering. It had oblong headlamps rather than round ones, and toward the end of the 1960s its options list came to include goodies like halogen fog and driving lamps. The car was a grand, very popular success, with well over 1.8 million R16s built during a production run of 15 years that lasted through to 1980.
As a young student and then engineer, I got attracted to the automotive industry mainly thanks to the innovative Citroën DS, launched in 1960, which represented a real breakthrough in style, technology and driving comfort. So when Pierre Cibié himself asked me to join his company, I accepted immediately. An innovation-focused mindset was the first lever to involve me in this job.
I was privileged because my first mission was to improve the performance of the Renault 16 headlamps, and to develop halogen versions. I remember working on huge studies to optimise the stamping process to achieve an optically ideal shape of the rectangular reflector and to optimise the polishing process for maximum reflectivity. At that time, the stamping and polishing operations were as important as optics in the 1980’s, electronics in the 1990’s, LEDs in the 2000’s, ADB now, and ADAS probably next decade.
We succeeded in developing Cibié “Biode” headlamps for the R16, with two H1 bulbs and two reflectors (one for high beam and one for low) behind the one oblong lens. The result was hugely improved low and high beam performance for the driver. Then eventually the H4 bulb came along and we developed H4 headlamps for the R16, giving even greater performance with much lower build cost and difficulty than the Biode.
I offer these reminiscences to make a point: to attract and hire the best young engineers, a company must offer them some fuel for dreams, and innovation remains a fantastic enabler for dreams. Ethusiasm and commitment: these are what the limited-edition de luxe DVN book Lighting: The Soul of Car Design is made of…and these are likewise the main takeaways from the thoroughly enjoyable experience of reading it and sharing it with your young potential hires.
Sincerely yours
DVN Editor in Chief