Robert Opron

Robert Maurice Jean Opron (22 February 1932 – 29 March 2021) was a French automotive designer.

He created or collaborated on numerous projects that became production cars for brands that included Simca, Renault, and Fiat.

In the early 1950s Opron's interest in aircraft led him to take up flying, including acrobatic flying.

He returned to France in 1952 and enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts in Amiens; one year later he transferred to the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

He studied architecture under Auguste Perret.

Altogether Opron spent eight years studying architecture, painting, and sculpture.

At age 21, he married Geneviève Mercier.

In 1952 Opron began his professional career as a machine designer for the Compagnie Nationale des Sucreries in Ham in the Somme.

In 1954 he was hired by aircraft builder Société Nationale de Constructions Aéronautices du Nord.

He specialised in cockpit design, and worked on the Nord Noratlas aircraft.

Opron began working at Simca in 1958 at age 26.

Here he designed the Fulgur, a bubble-topped car with tail fins which was to be atomic powered and voice controlled.

He also redesigned the Simca Vedette as a parade limousine for Charles de Gaulle.

Having joined Simca in 1958, his first significant project for them was designing the 1959 Simca Chambord Présidence V8 cabriolet used by French president Charles De Gaulle.

In 1959 Opron unveiled the futuristic Simca Fulgur concept car.

His department was eliminated in 1961, and Opron received a two-year severance payout, but with a non-compete clause that prevented him from moving to another automaker.

Instead Opron went to Arthur Martin, a company that produced housewares and home appliances, where he became Director of Style.

He is best known for his work at Citroën, which he joined in 1962 and where he became responsable de style (head of the design department) in 1964.

Opron was born in Amiens in Picardy, France.

His father was in the military and received several postings to locations in French Colonial Africa, so Opron grew up in places like Algeria, Mali and Abidjan.

At 18 years old Opron contracted tuberculosis, and had to spend time in a sanatorium.

Opron returned to automotive design with Citroën in 1962.

When Opron first applied to work for Citroën, the chief designer, Flaminio Bertoni, threw Opron's portfolio on the floor and told him he didn't think much of his work.

Three weeks later it transpired that he was merely testing him, and he not only offered him a job, but also became his mentor.

Opron went on to design the SM coupé, the GS and the CX, all for Citroën.

In 1964 he succeeded Bertoni as Citroën's chief designer.

Over the course of his career Opron became known for balancing a collaborative, team-based approach to design with creative input from individuals.

This bubble-topped design was Opron's response to a challenge from the magazine Journal de Tintin to design a car for the 1980s.

The magazine supplied a list of anticipated standard features that included radar obstacle detection and gyroscopic stabilisation.

Opron consulted with an astrophysicist friend to help integrate these not-yet realised concepts into the car.

While at Simca he sketched out a two-box hatchback that caught the attention of Fiat's designers.

This sketch eventually led to the Simca 1100.

Another sketch by Opron at Simca has been suggested to have been the original concept for what later became the Renault Espace.

Opron was one of twenty-five designers nominated for the 1999 Car Designer of the Century competition.

He finally retired from design work in 2001.

Opron died from complications of COVID-19 on 29 March 2021, in Antony near Paris.

A celebration of his work, OPRON 50 Years of Style, was held on 11 May 2002 in Verrières-le-Buisson on the occasion of his 70th birthday.

He received Car Design News' Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.

"The dolphin, the leopard, the swift, they each move at a speed consistent with their environment, each using a minimum of energy. What a great lesson for a stylist."

"All Opron’s car designs have an organic wholeness as if they have been grown or shaped by the forces of wind, light, scale and structure. Many agree that one of the signatures of an Opron design is the way it will catch the light, and that it has a dynamic graphical element – movement being intrinsic in its shape even at rest."