Ian Callum is something of a superstar in the world of car design. Do you remember the compact coupe once sold by Ford, the Puma? Callum’s. How about any number of Aston Martins, from the Vanquish to the DB9? Callum’s. The sporty Ford Escort Cosworth? Callum’s. And over half a dozen Jaguars, from the XJ to the latest F-Pace? You guessed it.
Last month, Jaguar launched the F-Pace’s little brother, the E-Pace on the luscious Mediterranean island of Corsica. Gentleman’s Journal headed to the island, to race around the twisting mountain roads alongside David Gandy and Oliver Cheshire, among others. But Ian Callum was the real star of the trip, quipping in his signature Scottish accent as we went along, and explaining just why the E-Pace is one of his best yet.
How does the design of the E-PACE honour Jaguar’s current ‘look’, whilst evolving on this for the future?
The E-PACE was clearly inspired by the F-TYPE, our sportiest and most performance-oriented car. This was done intentionally to capture the essence of Jaguar‘s performance values in a car designed for a new audience. Those F-TYPE cues can be seen in the shape of the headlights, the feature lines along the body side and, to a certain extent, the silhouette of the tail.
"The E-PACE was clearly inspired by the F-TYPE, our sportiest and most performance-oriented car..."
For E-PACE it was important we distinguished the car from its bigger brother, the F-PACE, by creating a different face. The grille remains constant throughout all our models, as you will see on the sports cars, SUVs and saloons. However we will continue to evolve headlamp design to give each car a more distinctive look. E-PACE in particular is separated from F-PACE through the different shape of headlights and the details.
Is the compact performance SUV market a difficult one to design for, and what are some of the stylistic challenges you must overcome in this sector?
By its nature an SUV is taller than the sports saloons and sports cars we’re used to and this is further exaggerated with a smaller SUV, which is shorter but the roof doesn’t necessarily get any lower. It is indeed challenging from a proportion point of view, where our natural tendency is to make things low and lean. However, I feel that we have captured an excitement in the silhouette of E-PACE to reflect Jaguar’s sporting values.
How does the Jaguar design process work from start to finish? Is it clay first, or pen to paper? And did this process differ for the E-PACE?
We still start with pencil and paper. That sense of spontaneity and life you have in such an initial stage is very important and part of my job is to capture and protect that spontaneity from the first sketches right through to production. Otherwise a car becomes very static and staid. So that first sketch and those first ideas are hugely significant.
"That sense of spontaneity and life you have in such an initial stage is very important..."
From pencil and paper we then move into the CAD process, creating three dimensional models both digitally and physically. Digital models are created using Alias and physical models are still created as a full size car in automotive modelling clay. This this may seem a very traditional way of doing it, but most manufacturers still follow this process because it’s really the only way to see and feel the shape of a car through to its end result.
The same also goes for the interior. Initial sketches eventually evolve through to more finished renderings using Photoshop and ultimately into 3D CAD models and 3D physical models. It’s not until we get to the physical model stage we can really make a true assessment of design, both visually and ergonomically.
The process for E-PACE was very much the same as we normally use, but naturally as each car evolves through time we become more efficient, allowing us more time to create different ideas to look at.
Want to read more of Gentleman’s Journal’s brushes with Jaguars? Check out the F-Type here…
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