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Let’s take your E-Type enthusiasm and a long held dream of being a Jaguar designer as read. Where else do you draw your inspiration from?
“There is this need I have to create something that gets simpler and simpler without becoming banal. Really what it kicks for me is that I don’t look at something and say, ‘I want to emulate that’. I certainly don’t look at other cars and think I want to emulate them.
“But what I might look at is a piece of architecture, or a black and white picture. I want to capture that simplicity, the strength and the power within them. I think a black and white picture is a perfect example of how that can work. When you have a really good photographer that captures the composition, that inspires me. “But I think to be inspired by something rather than inspired to emulate someone or something is the way to go.”
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Which, ironically, is the situation you have now with the F-Type…
“Absolutely! But it’s also very sophisticated. The forms are hugely complicated. They really are, especially if you start trying to replicate them digitally. But to the eye, they are very simple and beautiful forms. But that’s like anything really, I suppose.
“I love it! I really do, more than any car I’ve worked on. It’s just got so much sophistication to it. There is maturity to that as a team we’ve grown up with and learnt.”
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Walk us through the team behind the car. Who did what, and who was involved?
“Julian Thomson kicked the project off with his advanced team. Matt Beaven [Exteriors Advanced Designer at Jaguar] stuck with the car right the way through with exteriors. Alistair Whelan [Advanced Interiors Manager] worked on the interior because he is our whizz kid in that department(!), and Wayne Burgess [Production Studio Designer] picked everything up in the production phase. Then he and Alistair took it right through to fruition. When you get into details you are up to three or four designers managing all the aspects.
“But Alister and Matt were the main characters, and I just interfered as much as I could!
“We have a great team and great rapport and what I love about them is that they listen, which is good for a director. We listen and work respectfully, and try all the great ideas that flow through.”
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Did you have to make any compromises with the F-Type?
“Design is not about compromise. Design is about taking all the inputs and making the best of them. Some things you can’t change. Legislation for instance: you can’t change that. You have to work with it, and if there wasn’t any compromise, it’s a bit like giving an artist a blank piece of paper and saying ‘do something’. Make a work of art. If there is no rational or Raison d’être, there is no challenge. There is no depth. It’s that challenge that gives you the fun. You get what you want because you have to go into it and face those challenges.
“The one aspect that I would liked to have had – but couldn’t due to the restrictions of working with aluminium – is the tolerances on the radius. All the edges are a minimum of 12-15mm. Ideally I’d like it down to 5mm, to give it that little pierce of sharpness. But that is the only compromise.”
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One element of the design that’s caught us in particular are the rear lights. They are unbelievably streamlined, and about as E-Type-esque as you can get! How did that come about?
“The design happened as a deliberate attempt to capture something from the E-Type, as it was something we all loved about that model. That very horizontal feel across the back. Actually, those thoughts were instigated by Mr Tata. The back end of the car was originally a bit taller and had squarer lights, and that frustrated me a bit. It didn’t look ‘sparkly’ enough, and Mr Tata actually said ‘I wish we could get a little bit of the E-Type into the car somewhere. Look at the slimness of the tail at the back’.
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“Funnily enough, the tail wasn’t dropping off at all. It was actually coming up from underneath. Back then there was no bumper there, just fresh air. But of course you couldn’t do that nowadays because you need the bumpers in place. So that made me think, I must get some mass out. I did instigate dropping the tail down at that stage, and we did that quite a lot. And I suddenly thought this is better, a bit more classical. I didn’t want the big high back.
“That horizontal light and roundels was the direction. So the team worked on some ideas and that’s where the design came from. The first ones were too big and asked the team to slim it down, but couldn’t due to legal reasons. Then we looked at separating them, which was too costly. Then there were a lot of discussions back and forth until we ended up with the lamps we’ve got now. We couldn’t legally make them any slimmer than they are now!”
