In a golden age of motor vehicles when Ecurie Ecosse was powering metallic blue Jaguar D-types to victory at Le Mans and Jim Clarke was every boy’s hero, a certain sporty Porsche 356 occupied young Ian Callum’s mind.
He was growing up in Dumfries, not quite the centre of the motoring universe. But the smooth, beautiful lines of the two-door Porsche, with its shiny chrome bumper and fisheye headlamps, had captured his young heart.
When he made the regular trip from Dumfries to Edinburgh to visit his grandfather, it was to press his nose against the window of the Rossleigh Jaguar dealership and gaze at the jaw-dropping and gorgeous new E-type.
Enzo Ferrari apparently called it the “most beautiful car ever made”, and seven-year-old Ian, who had already knew he was destined to become a car designer, dreamt one day might top it.
Credited as Britain’s most important car designer and regularly referred to as “the man who saved Jaguar” his designs would go on to include the Aston Martin DB7, James Bond’s Aston Martin V12 Vanquish in Die Another Day and a generation of modern Jaguars that fulfilled his lifelong dream.
Having retired as director of design for Jaguar Land Rover and having marked his 70th birthday last month, he's now unveiled his latest creation - an on-and off-road all electric vehicle that can hit 0-60 in four seconds and that’s stamped with his distinctive flair.
Produced with his own design and engineering firm, Callum Designs and named the CALLUM SKYE in tribute to the Inner Hebridean island which is also the name of his Dorset home, he hopes that soon up to 150 of them will be rolling off the production line every year.
And, that the first model from a lifetime of car designs to actually bear his name, will be stamped ‘made in Scotland’.
“I want to build it in the UK and we’re looking at regional areas across the country including Scotland,” he says.
“Scotland was built on creativity, innovation and industry and it frustrates me how we seem to have lost that.
“I would love to see SKYE built in Scotland and bring some of that creativity back.”
The SKYE’s head-turning design has already created waves in the motor sector, where he holds “legendary” status for his work on some of the world’s most iconic cars.
Priced at between £80,000 and £110,000 and with options for an off-road edition with elevated body to tackle challenging terrain, or more urban version, it’s been praised for breaking the mould in a landscape of depressingly similar looking SUVs, with its dramatic, futuristic look.
There are already deposits and orders already in the book. Next steps will be to put the first models through their paces on the open road.
That’s expected to see the SKYE on some of the UK’s most challenging routes, including meandering Highland roads where many of his previous designs have had their first outings.
That would be particularly poignant moment for Ian who has paid tribute to his Scottish roots in the past by featuring a deconstructed tartan design in the interiors of some Aston Martins.
It would also be shared with another Scot: his Edinburgh-born colleague, Adam Donfrancesco, is co-founder of the design and engineering house and its director of engineering.
The new car marks another high in an incredible career forged in rural Dumfries and which has taken Ian to the motor capitals of the world and behind the wheel of some of its most luxurious and desirable cars - his own collection includes a Jaguar XKRS Coupe, some classic 1990s Minis and "a couple of Porsches".
Perhaps even more remarkable is that he’s not been entirely alone in forging a path for Scottish design at the peak of the motor industry. His younger brother Moray shared his passion for cars growing up and followed his lead.
Recently retired as head of design for Ford in America, he is revitalised the Mazda brand, designed a host of new Lincolns, Ford Mustangs and the Ford GT sports car.
“I grew up in love with cars,” Ian recalls. “I remember seeing a Porsche 356 when I was around three years old and it’s embedded in me.
“My grandfather lived in Edinburgh; he’d take me to local Jaguar garage where I saw the E-type.
“It would have been around 1961 I was about seven and it struck me as very special.
“In those days there was not the eclectic mix of cars you get today, and the sports cars at the time were very exciting.
“I fell in love with design. I realised I could draw and even at a young age I decided I would be a car designer even though no-one then really knew what a car designer was.”
That was double-edged: on one hand, no-one really knew how to train him, leading him into a series of courses that didn’t quite meet his needs.
On the other, it offered an ‘open road’ to forge his own path and enter a career which was seeking hungry talent passionate for cars.
He landed on an industrial design course at Glasgow School of Art, in classrooms overlooking the Mackintosh building and venturing inside it once a week to do life drawing.
That might seem an odd discipline for someone who’d go on to design inanimate objects, but he believes in the benefits of drawing as part of the creative process, and the skill of translating an image in the mind’s eye to the page.
It’s why he often shuns computers and design programmes, in favour of pencil and paper.
“These days there’s not the emphasis on drawing, but drawing is our language, it takes your ideas from a ‘micro thought’ to reality.
“You can go from your mind to computer and it’s much quicker.”
Inspiration can come from music, a country walk, a photograph, and seizing the moment, sketching it down, is crucial.
“Design is about spontaneity and capturing that moment - or not. If you run to a computer to do it, you’re potentially dictated by your computer skills rather than that sense of spontaneity.”
From GSA he studied automotive design at the Royal College of London, then worked at Ford where he contributed to iconic designs like the RS2000 and Escort RS Cosworth before landing at TWR Design.
Headed by Midlothian-born former racing driver Tom Walkinshaw, while there he’d be partly responsible for designing the Aston Martin DB7, James Bond’s Aston Martin V12 Vanquish, the DB7 Vantage and designs clients including Volvo and Mazda.
His name is linked to an array of modern classic cars that have enthusiasts praising his talent: from the super sporty Nissan R390 to the everyday Ford Puma, the Jaguar F-type and XK and the hybrid-electric concept car, the Jaguar C-X75 designed for Bond’s Spectre but never put in full production – they all have his fingerprints.
Although recognised with a CBE for his work in 2019, he’s his own critic: “I try to capture the modern sports car with delicacy but that takes a long time to get right,” he says.
“I’ll see a Jaguar F-type in the street and think ‘that’s nice’. But I struggle with everything I do, and I think ‘well, it could be better’.
“I look at all cars like that.”
His Aston Martin V12 Vanquish design is intrinsically linked with James Bond – the actual 2002 film car has just gone on sale for around £100,000. While he had a particular interest in watching the film’s ‘baddie’ as well as 007’s car as they careered across a frozen lake in one of its key scenes.
“I remember going to the film premiere in London. I was working at Jaguar at the time and, ironically, as well as the Aston Martin, I also designed the Jaguar XK that was the baddies’ car.”
One Bond car would become a lost treasure.
“The Jaguar C-X75 for Spectre was going to be a production car but halfway through they canned it. They shouldn’t have, but they did,” he explains.
“They decided it would be in the film and made some specially for that, but then sold them off.”
Now ultra-rare, Ian had left Jaguar and launched Callum Designs when he was reunited with one in what he calls “a lovely coincidence” when an owner approached him to ask if he could refurbish it.
Moments like that – and seeing his CALLUM SKYE hopefully roll off a Scottish production line and on to the open road – that mean he has no plans to stop designing any time soon.
“It feels like yesterday when I started. Creating is something you become addicted to, it’s an addiction,” he says.
“I still have the desire to be creative - that what led us designing our own car. Why? It’s an emotional necessity, it keeps me happy and it keeps me out of trouble.
“Putting my feet up doesn’t appeal.”
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