Louis Lucien Lepoix

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Louis Lucien Lepoix (born February 4, 1918 in Giromagny in France , † November 6, 1998 in Baden-Baden ) was a French industrial designer .

The prelude

Louis Lucien Lepoix, the first of four children of a master car mechanic, studied drawing, design, plastic representation and architecture in Lyon and Paris . He also completed an engineering degree. After the Second World War , Lepoix turned to Germany.

“ In October 1945 he came to Germany, initially for six weeks at Dornier and Maybach in Friedrichshafen on behalf of the French military. From the beginning of 1946 head of department in the French army in the 'Center de Réparation Automobilie Sud CRAS'. "

- Erika Kübler

A striking piece of work from this time: Albert Meier, technical director at ZF Friedrichshafen , had designed a small car that led to the Champion brand . Lepoix had rented a workshop for himself privately (for 15 Reichsmarks) from ZF in 1947. In this workshop and at CRAS, the "Lepoix-CHAMPION" was created as an alternative to the ZF small car. The entire body was made by hand from lightweight aluminum, total weight 220 kg. The available 8 HP (not 6.5 HP, as Thyssen writes) seem a bit tight for the vehicle. But that fully meets the type Cyclecar as after the Second World War some time been present in phases of material scarcity in again.

The design studio

Bugatti T 101 (prototype)

In 1947 Lepoix founded his design studio, which later became known as FTI Design (short for: F orm T echnik I nternational). In the following years he worked for numerous well-known (especially German) industrial companies and designed their products.

Initially, Lepoix mainly dealt with two-wheelers, e.g. B. with motor scooters from Bastert , FAKA , Horex , Maico , Puch and Walba as well as in 1947 with the 750 cm³ motorcycle "R 12" from BMW . The latter attracted a lot of public attention at the time because of its futuristic shapes. For example, it is said of a contemporary that when he saw the approaching vehicle, he thought, “It comes from the moon”.

In 1948 Lepoix bought a Simca chassis at an auction of confiscated cars and built a sports car on it on a private initiative with his colleague Franz Villing. With this vehicle he visited the manufacturer Bugatti in Molsheim, Alsace, to present drawings. Bugatti 's director at the time, Pierre Marco, liked the designs. He commissioned Lepoix to design the body of the new " Bugatti Type 101 " (1952) as a four-door sedan based on the design by Lepoix.

Based on designs by Lepoix, Drauz built Germany's first self-supporting bus in 1951, even before Setra .

Lepoix seemed to have had a particular preference for truck cabs. In 1951 and 1955 he designed corresponding designs for Magirus-Deutz - with rounded shapes, in keeping with the style of the time. A front control arm from 1955 remained only a prototype, but already showed essential features of the front control arms mass-produced by Magirus-Deutz from 1957.

From 1959 to 1961 Lepoix worked for Henschel , where he created a new, angular shape for Hauber and matching front control arms . His design made it possible to use 70 percent of the pressed parts of the basic body type for all other models and received the "if - Gute Industrieform" award from Deutsche Messe, Hanover.

In 1963 he designed the cab of the medium to heavy forward control engine for Magirus-Deutz , staying true to the cubic-angular style he had established. This also applies to the new look that he gave Büssing's commercial vehicles from 1966 . Central was the design of the "BS 16" model, which provided the form for the uniform design of all other Büssing models. Lepoix also worked for Hanomag and designed the angular, sleek shapes of the light Hanomag F series , which was sold from 1967, and that of a matching medium-weight front-wheel drive truck, which, however, later belonged to the Rheinstahl group to which Hanomag belonged, "Postponed" and launched in 1969 under the name Henschel because Rheinstahl had also taken over Henschel in 1965. In 1969 Hanomag and Henschel were merged to form Hanomag-Henschel , so that the vehicles that Lepoix had initially designed separately for each of the two manufacturers were then on the market under one roof and under one brand name.

  • 1961: medium to heavy Hauber , Henschel

  • 1961: medium to heavy front control vehicles , Henschel

  • 1963: medium to heavy forward control, Magirus-Deutz (TransEuropean cabin)

  • 1966: Model "BS 16", Büssing

  • 1967: F series from Hanomag (later Hanomag-Henschel)

  • 1969: medium-weight front handlebar, developed for Hanomag, sold as Henschel (later as Hanomag-Henschel)

Steyr truck

In addition, "LLL" was also active for the truck manufacturers:

A truck design for the French manufacturer Berliet (model "TR 300") was literally showered with awards. Through his influence on the design of trucks, especially in the 1960s, Lepoix helped shape the streetscape in Europe. Other manufacturers, for whom he did not work, could not escape the trend towards cubic cabin shapes and also presented similar designs, e.g. B. Mercedes-Benz ( see picture ).

1962: Hanomag "Perfect"
1964: Hanomag "Brillant"
1964: With the Steyr 30 , Lepoix opened the Steyr Plus series , a completely new design concept

In addition, Louis Lucien Lepoix designed the following in the course of his life

Even the interior design of the supersonic airliner Concorde comes from Lepoix.

1952 Lepoix settled in Baden-Baden . From 1969 to 1973 he was President of the French Industrial Designers Association. His chosen hometown of Baden-Baden honored his life's work in 1997 with an exhibition entitled “50 Years of Technical Aesthetics”. By his death in 1998, he had given shape to around 3,000 products, including around 300 vehicles. His grave is in the main cemetery in Baden-Baden .

Aftermath

The city of Baden-Baden has named a vocational school after Louis Lepoix.

literature

  • Louis L. Lepoix and Erika Kübler: 50 years of technical aesthetics / 50 ans d'Esthétique Technique: Louis L. Lepoix industrial designer, Lepoix System, Baden-Baden 2003

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Written communication from April 19, 2013
  2. ^ Written communication dated April 29, 2013
  3. ^ Louis L. Lepoix and Erika Kübler: 50 years of technical aesthetics / 50 ans d'Esthétique Technique: Louis L. Lepoix industrial designer, Lepoix System, Baden-Baden 2003, page 52
personal data
SURNAME Lepoix, Louis Lucien
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French industrial designer
DATE OF BIRTH February 4, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Giromagny , France
DATE OF DEATH November 6, 1998
Place of death Baden-Baden