Features: Ian Callum

Ian Callum, Jaguar Head of Design

The pictures on the walls of his office are of Jaguars and Aston Martins, but the scale model on Ian Callum�s desk is a black, �32 Ford Model B coup�. A full-size version, with hand-beaten body and 450bhp V8, is nearing completion. �It�s buckets of money, but it�s something I�ve wanted to do ever since I was about 14 years old,� reveals Jaguar�s Director of Design.

Callum's inspiration: the 1968 XJ6

Ford Ghia Zig concept

Aston Martin DB7

R Coupe concept

R-D6 concept

Callum with Advanced Lightweight Coupe

Sir William Lyons with E-Type

�I�m a car nut as much as a designer. Not all designers are but I just love cars.� Inevitably the parking space under his window contains a Jaguar, an XKR, but the Callum fleet also includes a modified �94 Mini with "wheels so big I can hardly drive it". Jaguar engineers tell me that prototypes which come his way are generally driven hard, something which Callum confirms with a mischievous grin.

It was this enthusiasm which led him to the Royal College of Art�s vehicle design post-grad course, after completing a degree in Industrial Design at Glasgow School of Art. He then spent 11 years at Ford, contributing to image-builders like the RS200 and Escort Cosworth as well as bread-and-butter machines like the Fiesta and Mondeo. Callum also worked on the Via, Zig and Zag concept cars at the Ford-owned Ghia studio.

In 1990 he left to set up a brand new design studio for Tom Walkinshaw�s vehicle engineering group TWR. �Some of my colleagues came to see me from Ford, and I�d walked away from this giant studio at Dunton, the corporation, all that stuff, into this little tin shed in Kidlington. They thought I was utterly mad. But I was as happy as could be, I was doing something I wanted to do.�

Callum shaped bodykits for TWR-converted Mazdas and Holdens, and then hit the big time when TWR was commissioned to design and build the Aston Martin DB7. Further Astons and a variety of other projects for TWR followed, and then Callum returned to the �corporate� fold in 1999 when he succeeded the late Geoff Lawson at Jaguar.

For a while Callum directed design for both Jaguar and Aston Martin, and he has clear ideas about the differences between the two marques. �Jaguars are more voluptuous than Astons, more curvaceous, more extreme. They shout a bit louder than Astons.� The E-type, he says, is the perfect example. �Though it was a beautiful car it was quite a statement. Visually it�s shouting at you. You couldn�t get more ostentatious than the E-Type.�

Another Jaguar of that era, the original XJ6, was a big influence on him. �I just stared at it and stared at it, literally for hours on end,� he says. �Basically it�s where I learnt about the proportion of a car. The wheels were enormous, and there�s this lovely lean piece of metal above them. Gorgeous. That was Lyons, he just knew how to do this.�

Recent Jaguars have tended to stick close to the tried and tested formulae of the past, but Callum is keen to demonstrate that it doesn�t have to be that way. Together with Julian Thomson (head of Jaguar�s advanced design studio, formerly of Lotus where he designed the S1 Elise) he has produced a string of concept cars, starting with R-Coupe in 2001.

�Julian and I wanted to make a statement about what a Jag could look like that wasn�t what you�d expect,� says Callum. That statement was aimed as much at Jaguar�s own management and design teams, he says. �I had to convince them that there was more than one way to skin a cat, so to speak.�

It was a similar story with R-D6, unveiled at Frankfurt in 2003. �It was a ploy from me to convince people that a Jaguar did not have to be a stereotype vehicle, as it has been in the past. I wanted to produce something that is very difficult to define. People don�t know whether its a coupe or a hatchback or a saloon car, or a sports car. They couldn�t work it out. That�s great.�

Jaguar's new XK

The most recent of those concepts is ALC, the Aluminium Lightweight Coupe, which made its debut at the Detroit show in January. Callum confirms that it is a preview of the new XK. Its similarity in profile to an Aston DB9 is a reflection of modern safety legislation, he says.

�If you take the set of rules we work to, by default you end up with the same profile. It�s inevitable.�� Pedestrian safety is one problem, looking after unbelted occupants - an American safety fetish - is another. �That determines the height of the top of the screen, which is difficult if you�re trying to do a sports car. Then there�s a legal European line for the bonnet so you can�t bring that up. You can make it different by making it not as pretty, but I won�t do that, and if it means I�ve got to take a bit of flak because it looks like something else then fine, because its there for a reason. That�s something I�m not prepared to compromise on.�

While the XK is imminent, an F-type � a proper sports car � seems a long way off. Callum came up with a Boxster-like car which was �still clearly a Jaguar,� with a mid-mounted transverse V6, but the project was cancelled.

Does he still think Jaguar should do a proper sports car? �Absolutely. We�ve got other things to do first, but it�s on the radar. It has to have the impact of the E-type, yet in a completely different way.� Coventry�s next generation of cars has to be "a big surprise", he says.

�Jaguar has adhered to the rulebook of what a Jaguar is for too long. With the new XK we�ve moved it on a bit, but the next stage is to throw the rulebook away completely - because that�s what Lyons would have done.�

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