Jacques Durand

[1] Upon his return to Paris he took steps to avoid being conscripted by the STO (service de travail obigatoire) being run by the German forces then occupying France.

Durand then began putting the engines into his own series of 1/10th scale models of racing cars like the Jaguar D-type and Mercedes-Benz 300SL, among others.

Most of the cars used a rear-engine powertrain sourced from the Renault 4CV, although at least one Atla was built with the air-cooled boxer-twin engine and transaxle from a Panhard Dyna Z in a front-engine, front-wheel-drive configuration.

Financing to build a series of Atlas was provided by Renault dealer Jean Schwab, who also assigned one of his employees to help with painting and trimming the cars.

This resulted in Durand receiving a proposal to build the car in Spain, which led him to relocate to Tarragona to restart Sera production there.

[2] Import restrictions imposed by the Franco government made it impossible to obtain the French Panhard components needed to complete the cars.

After moving back to France from Spain Durand returned to Antony and in 1962 once again partnered with Cusson to design a new car.

The Arista predated Durand's involvement, having been created in 1952 by renaming the earlier Callista Ranelagh roadster that had first appeared at the 1950 24 Heures du Mans.

Gaillard added a coupé and a 2+2 to the model line-up that were styled by Max Berlemont and with bodywork in fibreglass by Chappe et Gessalin.

In 1964 they introduced the "Véhicule Utilitaire de Livraison" ('VUL'), a fibreglass truck or van body mounted on a shortened Renault 4 chassis for urban delivery work.

The following year founder André Morin decided to develop a small sports car that was also based on the Renault 4 chassis and hired Durand to design the body.

[9] For the Sovam "Voiture de Sport" (VdS) Durand produced a compact coupé body with quad headlamps, a steeply raked windscreen, and a removable roof panel.

Following the end of his time at Sovam, Jacques Durand moved to a town near Parthenay to develop a new sports coupe of his own that was based on the R8 Gordini engine and transaxle.

The Jidé car was a small hardtop two-seat coupé with a rear mid-engine, rear-wheel drive layout.

In general appearance the Scora resembled its predecessor so closely that the then-current owners of the Jidé brand sued Durand.

At various times he applied his experience with fibre-reinforced plastics to making sailboats, sports steering-wheels, tool-boxes, mud-flaps and radiator shrouds.

[2] Together with his son he made headlamp parts for Renault 5 Turbos, the bodywork for Jean Louis Schlesser's first Dakar buggy and once again returned to making a series of scale models of various sports cars, including his own Jidés.

[2] In September 2010 a tribute to Durand and retrospective of his work was part of the 32nd Circuit International des Remparts d'Angoulême.