This Much I Know: Ian Callum
Words Angus Mackenzie
He Looks Tired And Drawn under the bright lights of the Jaguar stand at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. It's not just the adrenaline bleeding out of his system after revealing what will be his first production Jaguar design: Three weeks ago Ian Callum snapped his collarbone in a serious fall, and it's hurting like hell. Yesterday, he made the center-stage presentation for the Jaguar Advanced Lightweight Coupe before a capacity crowd in the Cobo Arena without his arm in a sling: "I didn't want everyone talking about my arm instead of the car." But he's paying for it now.
It seems hard to believe Callum's been Jaguar's design chief for nearly six years, and only now do we see how the man responsible for what are arguably three of the most beautiful GT coupes of the late 20th century--Aston Martin DB7, Vanquish, and DB9--plans to take Jaguar into the 21st. Callum won't say, but Jaguar has clearly been a rough ride since he took over from the late Geoff Lawson in August 1999. Parent company Ford's stereotypical view of the brand and cheapskate product planning left it with a contrived, retrostyle four-model product range that hasn't won over legions of new buyers and has relatively few interchangeable components to allow manufacturing efficiency. With sales well short of targets, Ford's grandiose plans to make Jaguar the next BMW are in tatters: Late last year, the company announced its storied Browns Lane plant would be closed.
Against this background, Ford needed a good news story from Jaguar at Detroit--which is why Callum's 2006 XK8 was presented as a thinly disguised concept. And although you'd think his credentials for designing a glamorous GT are impeccable, it's clear the new XK8 has been the subject of more internal wrangling than he would've liked. "Everyone has an opinion on Jaguars," says Callum, with deliberate emphasis. "Whether they love them or hate them, they think they know what they should be like. They may not understand what they should be like in the future, but they have an opinion."
Callum Has Firm Views on what makes a sports car look right. He's unfazed by suggestions his XK8 reinterprets design elements already seen in his Aston Martins. "I have a set of rules with which I understand I can make things happen," he says. "And those rules don't change just because you move from one brand to another." Callum insists the XK's powerful rear haunches are simply a fundamental design element of British sports cars that dates back to the 1950s, while the DB7-style tapered cockpit was also seen on the Jaguar E-Type in 1963, and the Aston Martin DB2 before that. "You could cross-reference the two brands endlessly," he says.
The XK's aggressive stance is deliberate, and, for Jaguar, edgy. "The thing about a sports car is it's a caricature," says Callum. "You have to exaggerate things, otherwise it becomes so mellowed out people don't get worked up about it. I felt slightly uneasy about how far we took it, but I've got to the point in life where I don't want to do tame anymore."
Callum Says The Xk Moved Him out of his own comfort zone. "Look at the DB7. You couldn't get a more comfortable car than that." Even so, there were some ideas he couldn't get away with, such as a side-opening hatchback just like the one on the original E-Type. That was vetoed on the basis owners would object to struggling to lift their golf bags or Samsonites over the high load lip that would've been the invariable result. Callum demurred, though he remains skeptical as to how many XK owners actually throw luggage in their cars. "If it had been my car and my car company, I would've done it," he says.
The bottom line, adds Callum, is the new XK8 is a more handsome sports car than a Mercedes, Maserati, or BMW. "And you can quote me on that."
So what can we read into the future direction of Jaguar design from the new XK? "We came out on stage yesterday with a car that said Jaguar isn't a gentle, historic car company," says Callum bluntly. "People get anal about real graphics and specifics. For me it's about atmosphere, it's about values--the stuff people find less tangible and more difficult to understand. I want a Jag to feel like the metal has been wrapped over something fundamental; the cars will look like they're snapping, they'll be as tight as a drum. But at the same time, they'll be voluptuous."