Ian Callum’s forgotten concepts

The really special part of the R-Coupe was the interior. The ‘spitfire wing’ (the informal description of the Jaguar dashboard) was apparent in the top roll design, while the dials were all individual, silver plated – yes really – capsules nestled within the form. Beautiful objects to behold in their own right. Although the holistic view of the car was always more important than the sum of its parts, I always encouraged my designers to treat each detail as something that could stand alone, to be appreciated in its own right. The doors were detailed in swathes of wood, but not as you might expect. This was charcoaled, burnt wood. Our symbolic nod to leaving the past where it belonged: behind us.

The car would be launched at the 2001 Frankfurt Auto Show. Believe it or not the car was not a ‘runner’ so had to be pushed around manually, which was entirely normal in those days. It would be presented on an individual turntable and was manhandled up the ramps to the star spot on the stand, a clumsy and slightly embarrassing process. The next day I was obliged, in my relatively new role of Design Director, to present it to the world’s media.

The choreographing of a such a show – for that’s what it is – is always well rehearsed, timed literally to the second with precise words and images. It’s a real production and very stressful, not least because each manufacturer only gets a set time in the schedule of the press day’s programme of presentations and it’s crucial to neither under-run and waste valuable time or, worse, overrun and watch the journalists drift off to someone else’s conference before you’re finished.

Autocues ready, I nervously walk out in front of hundreds of onlookers as the cover was pulled off. I don’t recall the reaction of the audience as autocues tend to place you inside your own bubble. My team informed me after that the reaction was one of surprise. Good, I thought. That’s what we wanted. The world now knows we mean to shake things up. In retrospect the car wasn’t that extraordinary, but it was elegant and beautiful and definitely a break from the past. It was also a turning point which allowed us to move on.

The next morning the R-Coupe, looking very smart in its warm silver paint and its Connolly tan interior, had been moved to pride of place on the Jaguar stand, this in the pre-JLR days when Jaguar was its own brand. Then came a barrage of interviews, where I quickly learned to say as much as I wanted and needed to say and not one word more. Interviews like this at car shows are demanding experiences as every journalist has his or her own style and each discussion would be slightly different; they also lasted all day. It was exhausting! My minder from the press relations office would kick me under the table the moment the conversation wandered onto anything but the car. Though it took years, I learned how to control the conversation and occasionally plant a mischievous thought or two in the mind of the journo, which might just slip into print. These tended to be things I wanted the company to do, but were not yet approved. The technique proved a great catalyst for change and well worth the telling off later!

Early in the afternoon I was in the R-Coupe with Jacques Nasser, then CEO of Ford. A formidable man but someone I knew well from my time designing cars for Aston Martin. We got on well as he had a real passion for cars and product, always placing design at the forefront of the brands. We were discussing the detail of the interior, especially those silver-plated dials when after about 10 minutes there was a knock on the plexiglass side window. ‘Mr Nasser, we need to speak to you.’ He politely gestured to his security man to wait and carried on discussing the dials. Another FBI-looking character appeared, complete with earpiece, insisting Mr Nasser get out of the car immediately. Jacques apologised to me. ‘Sorry Ian, I’d better get out and find out what all the fuss was about’. There were a few words spoken in his ear and then he walked off with the men in black.

It was September 11^th.

In that single moment, our wonderful glittering jewel lost all its shine, and the car never quite seemed the same again to me. We showed the R-Coupe at a couple more shows after painting it green. A new colour is always a good trick to get some more images in print. I never liked green cars, but the team thought it appropriate for the brand. The R-Coupe is now back in its correct silver and on display at the Heritage Museum at Gaydon. It’s still beautiful.

Roll on another year and there was still no all-new Jaguar in sight. I was no longer creating Astons at the Jaguar studio (it is perhaps not well-known that the DB9 and most of the Vantage had been conceived there) and so the table felt bare. We had a facelift S-Type to do, but the all-new XK was still a few years off. So I spoke to Stuart Dyble, then head of Jaguar PR, and we agreed the all-new V6 diesel engine needed a stylish introduction. Engines on their own only receive attention from the aficionados, but wrap them up in a sexy car and suddenly they have meaning.

During the previous months I’d asked the team to come up with a small hatchback Jaguar as part of my ploy to introduce the idea of a more urban car to the brand. I’ve always been a great fan of hot hatchbacks and felt Jaguar was missing a trick not considering a smaller car. The concept we came up with was cute; we purposefully called it the Mini Mezzo. I loved it, but sadly it landed on deaf ears. Until we break the paradigm that says small equals cheap, there will never be a proper baby Jag.

So I said to Julian and the team that we should take the principle of that car in style and shape and package it around the new V6 diesel. It evolved and grew in size as the donor platform was the aluminium X350 XJ, albeit shortened. This gave us great proportions with the short wheelbase and a wide stance. Due to that wheelbase we chose to put ‘suicide doors’ on the rear on to give it true four passenger ingress and an additional talking point. Unfortunately, we were accused if copying the Mazda RX-8, but the truth is we’d designed our car before we’d ever heard of the Mazda.

Officially they were referred to as ‘freestyle doors’ as the alternative was deemed politically incorrect. We also opted for a side opening rear door like the E-Type, which was great fun to do. The interior was intriguing and described by its designer Alister Whelan as being inspired by a vodka bar. I would watch fellow Jaguar executives flinch every time he mentioned it! The colourful lighting of the saddle leather-clad dashboard was quite exotic for the time.

Complete with powerful haunches and a traditional grille, the car took on a rather mysterious form not fitting into any specific automotive category. It had true individual character. This would bear out at the show when I was constantly asked what it was. I find the automotive world likes genres, which is one reason I enjoy the creative ambiguity that challenges such straight-line thinking.

The car – called R-D6 – was shown at the Frankfurt show in 2003. I am pleased to say it stirred the imagination of many journalists and onlookers. However, one word that came back to my interview desk was that it was ‘retro’. It puzzled me and annoyed us as a team. There was nothing retro about the car – it was only the grille they were referring to. That was the moment I decided the traditional Mark 2 grille would be no more and that future Jaguar faces would take on a different look.

Unlike the R-Coupe, the R-D6 concept was a runner – it could be driven, and quite quickly too. The new V6 diesel had abundant torque and the chassis, still that of an XJ, was properly sorted. Consequently, we decided to drive it up the hill at the 2004 Goodwood Festival of Speed. I was nominated to drive and so we were going to give this car the visibility it deserved, and I was going to have a lot of fun.

Sitting at the start of the hill at Goodwood is nerve wracking. I had never experienced it before, probably unlike many of my Ti colleagues, but lining up and waiting for your turn is exhausting. Many thoughts rush through your head as you watch the crowd of thousands stare in anticipation of a tyre screeching take off!

My turn came and the flag fell. I managed to spin the wheels and achieve the required tyre squeal, which felt obligatory. Then I suddenly realised how quick this thing could be and so decided to give it my best effort. As we approached the second bend, I became aware of the tail sliding out, possibly beyond my capability, as I suddenly remembered this car was not on real tyres. They were hand-cut show car tyres designed purely to look cool, not to grip tarmac. Having managed to pull it back in line, just in time, I gingerly drove up the rest of course with more caution, realising I’d nearly written off a £1.5m concept in front of many tens of thousands of spectators.

Sadly, the car did not gain enough support from the board to consider it for production because, in my view, the culture was still too wary to change and, ironically enough, there was little money left in the pot after all the investment in the diesel engine the car was designed to promote. However, in later years many admitted internally at Jaguar that we should have built it. And yes, we should have!