#IanCallum

Designers don’t always get the credit they deserve, nor the recognition they usually shun. But without a steady, inspired hand forming the shape of an automaker’s offerings, all the business acumen of the C-suite class adds up to not much.

Jaguar can credit its post-Ford identity to one man, Ian Callum, who moved the company away from unconvincing, reheated ’60s design templates and into a new era for the British marque. Callum, who served as Jag’s director of design for two decades, is now leaving his post.

“The XK being dropped was much to my frustration.”
– Jaguar design director Ian Callum

The Jaguar XK ended its 19-year-long run after the 2015 model year, undone by disappearing demand and the success of the smaller, more affordable Jaguar F-Type. But it wasn’t supposed to be this way, Jaguar design director Ian Callum says. The XK was supposed to roll along in third-gen form alongside the first-gen F-Type.

“The F-Type was never meant to kill the XK,” Callum tells Autocar.

In fact, despite the design work that had already begun on the next Jaguar XK — a car that never materialized — the marketing execs at Jaguar didn’t see the need for two coupes. The third-gen XK never enjoyed any engineering development.

Yet Callum’s outsized influence at Jaguar appears to be producing XK-shaped fruit in Jaguar’s product planning department. While there’ll likely be a new Jaguar F-Type first, you can begin inspecting your local Jaguar showroom for the next Jaguar XK in 2021.

Fortunately, premium automakers have not adopted a One Size Fits All approach. We have choices. Plenty of choices.

Increasingly, however, we are seeing a One Look Fits All Sizes methodology, limiting our ability to distinguish between a 3 Series, 5 Series, and 7 Series at BMW; between A4s, A6s, and A8s at Audi; or between C, E, and S-Class sedans at Mercedes-Benz.

With the second-generation XF appearing all but identical to the first XF, and the subsequent launch of the entry-level XE closely resembling an abbreviated XF, Jaguar’s guilty of the same crime against differentiation.

Fortunately, famed Jaguar design director Ian Callum says future Jaguar designs won’t be revealed merely as S, M, and L versions of the same t-shirt.

Ian Callum, the director of design at Jaguar, spoke recently at Coventry University’s National Transport Design Centre on various subjects related to the auto industry.

Callum, a Coventry University alumnus, touched on automotive history, autonomous vehicles, the buying process, even Jaguar itself.

Ian Callum also had something to say about the V8 engine, according to CAR Magazine.

Long live the Queen.

Long live the V8.

Jaguar’s design chief just broke the hearts of that tiny, tiny group of enthusiasts who were holding out for a new Jaguar wagon.

Ian Callum threw an ice cold pot of tea onto speculation that the British automaker would offer a wagon version of one of its new sedans, telling a group of auto journos in London that they were done with estate cars, Automotive News Europe has reported.

The reason for this has a lot to do with why Callum and the journalists were in the same room. The event concerned the 2017 Jaguar F-Pace, the automaker’s first crossover SUV.

Imagine if Lucas, Prince of Darkness were still supplying electrics to the British car industry. A Lucas navigation system would make Apple Maps look like a good choice. Lucas telematics would require a Whitworth wrench to access.

I kid because I love. I’ve spent more hours under the hood of British sports cars than just about anything else in my life, though not at all in the last decade or so. Even then, I still have MG shop manuals under my bathroom sink, ready for the restoration of the car I don’t yet own.

After three concept crossovers, Jaguar is ready to go all in for 2016 with the F-Pace.

For those of us who love the Jaguar’s F-Type’s zazz but would prefer to keep the wind out of our hair (along with the rain, sleet and snow) on a more permanent basis, Jaguar now has an option for you.

Few aspects of the automobile are as examined, analyzed and obsessed upon as styling. Ask most people about cars and they won’t talk about engine displacement or suspension setup; it’s the physical presence of cars that captures interest and sparks passion. For a niche luxury brand like Jaguar, which survives on the margins of major markets without the backing of a full-line automaker, the art and science of auto styling is of supreme importance. Unable to match its rivals in the technological arms race of the upper-echelon luxury segment, Jaguar’s relevance is perhaps more tied to its ability to create compelling designs than any other modern brand. Were this the only challenge facing Jaguar’s chief designer Ian Callum, his job would be one of the most interesting in the business. Thanks to Jaguar’s nearly 40-year stylistic stasis however, Callum’s tenure is nothing less than one of the most significant in the history of automotive design.