Note to Self: Ian Callum

However, two good things came from it. First I met Peter Stevens (whose later career, including shaping the McLaren F1, speaks for itself), who looked for all the world like he belonged on the cover of Sgt. Pepper. He came to teach us rendering, this real live car designer from the Ford studio in Essex. At last there was something to connect to my ambition, but it wasn’t enough to keep me there. But in the years to come Peter would become a very good friend and mentor to me.

I also discovered Bowie. Collecting his albums was a big part of life; music remaining rooted at the heart of my imagination. Through his music, I came to understand how creativity reaches across so many disciplines. He was so inspiring.

At the end of the year I left Coventry thoroughly disillusioned, and not really wanting to pursue a career in car design any longer. I went to look for myself and find out what else I could do. So now I’d arrived at the gateway to adulthood, what do I know now that I wish I’d known then? I’ve tried to set it out in the letter you’re about to read to that disheartened, disaffected kid.

Dear Ian,

You’ve just gone through some trauma, your dreams are shattered and you don’t know what to do. Keep the faith! You didn’t dive into this ambition with trivial intentions, the foundations are there and just because this year has been tough, know that you can and will make it. In fact, you will soon discover that nothing in this life is absolute and change will take you places you had never imagined. Hold your nerve.

Regardless of any choices, your journey will be an adventure, but you already know that. Changes are hard at your age but there will be many more tough ones to come.  Whatever doesn’t break you will only make you stronger. A cliché, but true!

What you are about to discover is hard work. Sure, you worked hard at school and did well, but you didn’t enjoy the process of education. It was a means to an end. You had other things on your mind, despite all that condemnation from your academic masters. What you don’t yet know is that you are about to elevate yourself to a level of working hard you barely knew existed, and you’ll do it despite there being no one there to tell you specifically what to do or how to do it. That is such a scary prospect. You will learn that true creativity is harder than anything you learned at school.

You were right to give up Coventry. You were too young and needed to find yourself. But vowing never to return may have been short sighted. That story will unfold. The opportunity for creativity is limitless, and you need to widen your palette. The discipline of creativity is enormous and you’re about to learn it at your next stop in Aberdeen.

Gray’s Schools of Art in Aberdeen will be tougher than you imagined. But so too will you spend much time socialising, and find a sense of contentment. You’ll learn how to communicate through a pencil and even paint; more importantly still you will learn to start work at 9am and finish usually after 6pm. Discipline!

Then, there is the homework. Art and Design is hard. New ideas are harder. Communication is harder still. You will learn all this at Gray’s and decide finally that product design is for you after all. So, the next stop is Glasgow. I wish you’d spent time discussing all this with your parents who are despairing at what they see as their completely rudderless son. Only you know you have a plan, but you are young and feel no need to explain yourself to anyone.

Then it’s the Glasgow School of Art, a place of great distinction where you will truly find your ability to problem solve. You are privileged to be there so realise it and feel it! This is one of the best creative institutions in the world, somewhere you are not merely allowed to find and push your limits of design and inventiveness, but encouraged to. Something that will occur to you will be simple cause and effect.

After graduating from Glasgow, the path will lead to no less an institution than the Royal College of Art in London where, thanks to sponsorship from Ford, you will finally get to study Automotive Design. Another extraordinary privilege and this time you’re going to truly appreciate it and the good fortune that got you there. Yes, you actually wanted to join GM, but it was Ford that gave you your break and a Ford man you will become, in more ways you can imagine. And you will love being in London, living in Kensington no less. Wow!

At the RCA you will meet up with Peter Stevens again and a lifelong friendship will evolve. A friendship you will cherish.

After London you’ll join the Ford studio in Essex. Something you will never appreciate at the time is how fortunate you were just to be able to walk into a job. Back then in 1979 car design as a career path was still a mystery to most and there were more jobs than there were applicants for them. With colleges overflowing these days, the situation is now precisely the reverse.

Your early days at Ford will be a frustrating disappointment. Your ambition is to create entire, wonderful cars; your reality is having to design steering wheels for Transits. My goodness you are so impatient! But once you see your work turn to reality, seeing your sketch as a real object, the thrill returns. It eventually dawns on you that you must use this time to learn. And you do.

Of course you won’t realise it at the time, but Ford will be good to you. Not only are you learning so much, but Ford will also offer assignments to the US, Australia, Japan and ultimately Italy. As you sit in the big office in Turin, wondering what the hell to do with this managerial job, your first job with any responsibility, you will determine your mission. Whatever happens, what matters is what comes out of the studio. The product! Nothing else matters. This is what you will be judged on. Not the politics or the promotion or, indeed, popularity. This will become your life manifesto. It sounds simple, but you’d be surprised how often it’s missed by others chasing their own personal cause.

Your Ford years will be rock solid, and you will leave in good spirits, which is just as well given what’s going to happen over the next few years.

In Australia you will hear of a man called Tom Walkinshaw when he arrives in 1985 to run his big and brutal Jaguar XJS at Bathurst. It’s a pivotal point in your life. Watching his team win, you’ll decide that one day you will work with your fellow Scot. He will inspire you and such intuition will prove to be invaluable as five years later there you are: a TWR employee. Your instincts are strong.

You’ll join in 1990 and despite the risks in working for such a small business, this must be the best decision of your life. It will take you to a point of finally designing cars, rather than just parts for interiors.  You will be part of a team that effectively saves Aston Martin as well as creating other products for Volvo, Nissan and, ironically, your first Ford. It will be called Puma. During this time, you will come together with an old friend from the Ford days, Peter Horbury. Your careers will become intertwined for many years to follow and for a long time he will be your best friend and confidant. One sad day you will come to miss him dearly.

You will learn much about yourself over the next 10 years. You will grow to understand how to deal with teams and people, and will work like never before out of sheer love for the products and for the brand called TWR. Tom will extract 110 per cent from you because you both care so much about the product. You’ll learn his tenacity and vision. The first Aston – it’ll be called DB7 – will be your first number one ‘hit’ and lead you into a world which you had only dreamed of during all those frustrating years that led to this moment.

But you will work long hours, and omit to give your growing family the time it fully deserves. You’re only going to realise it later in life and with it will come a profound sense of sadness. But at the time such scenarios go hand in hand with ambition and no one has yet ever heard of a ‘work/life balance’.

At the age of 45 you will be given your dream job, Design Director of Jaguar cars. In Coventry! Incidentally, it will be owned by Ford, so the people you knew back then… well, many are still there. A very good job you left on good terms. Your work and commitment at TWR will put you in good stead. At first you will question the opportunity at Jaguar because your TWR job was so good. ‘Never fear giving up something good for something better,’ a friend will point out. It is a daunting prospect: you have a fear of fitting back into corporate life, but eventually you will commit the next 20 years of your life to the marque you admired since childhood. Again, an enormous privilege but now you’re old enough to realise it and never take it for granted.

At Jaguar you will learn politics and how to get things done. People and opinions will frustrate you at first but learning how to communicate the whole essence of design will become a top priority. It’s not the idea of what or how to create a car that is ever the problem. Ideas will come thick and fast, and you will build a fine team. No, it’s the system of approval and objectives that will prove challenging. But persevere you will, and between you all you will create a portfolio of products that change the face of Jaguar. The best advice you will receive is exactly that I gave to you at the start of this letter. It will come from your good friend and project engineering manager, Mick Mohan. ‘Hold your nerve!’ You will never forget that.

You will surround yourself with great people including an old friend from the Ford days, Julian Thomson. He will be your rock and support. Like an old couple, constantly arguing and debating, he will act like a stabiliser through the tumultuous times, of which there will be no shortage.

There will be people who will try to make life difficult. There will be bosses who want to fire you. There will be people who are so politically driven, their motives will be questionable. This is a big boys’ world and they’re not going to make it easy for you, while all you want to do is create beautiful cars. But hold your nerve you will.

What comes out of the studio is what you will be judged upon, but by now it’s also what is right for this brand that you love so much. Unfortunately, you won’t win all the discussions on what is right for Jaguar as the business follows other’s business models too closely. You will shout, but not loud enough! There will be moments when your determination can be blind to true judgment, and in time you too will realise that everything you have directed could have been better. That is the sad truth of new ideas. One day even the best of them will become old ideas so you must move on without sentimentality. You will come to terms with that.

Let’s mention your cars at this point. Because cars are so very important to you. You will be so privileged to own some of the cars you dreamt of as a boy plus many others. Many Jaguars will pass your hands including those your team created. You will have Minis, Porsches and even an Aston. You will have hot-rods you only dreamt of as a teenager. However, your first car will be a Volvo, a PV544 bought from Peter Stevens in 1977. Yes, a Volvo, but do not fear. It was very special and in time you will wish you kept it.

However, one car, your all-time favourite, will elude you… The Ferrari 250 GT SWB. But such a car will give you two of the best days of your life as you find yourself driving up the west coast of Scotland in the car bought by Rob Walker for Stirling Moss to drive in – and win – the 1961 Tourist Trophy at Goodwood. No 7! Remember at the age of 13 you promised yourself you would come back to that road in something very special. Well, you will and it’ll be spectacular.

You will make many like-minded friends from all around the world and enjoy mutual stories of cars and design and receive many special invitations from people you would never imagine you would ever meet. Enjoy those moments to the fullest. They are very, very special indeed.

Many years later it will be time to retire; you will feel a sense of achievement, to a degree. But you will be given a CBE in the Queen’s 2019 birthday honours for contributions made to the British car industry. You, a Commander of the British Empire! You will scarcely be able to believe it, and it will be one of the proudest moments of your life.

But you’re not done yet. That sense of enough never being enough has not gone away and it causes you to launch your own business aged 65. Having learned that everything grows old and that new needs a place, you will continue. So you will start a design business simply called CALLUM. You’ll agree to the name only reluctantly, alongside two much younger friends. Younger friends will bring energy. This for them will be a lifeline. For you it is a statement of unfinished business. I would suggest you do this sooner as your final years of work at Jaguar will be wiped out in a stroke. But that’s another story for another time. You will find the business harder than anticipated, but it will be vastly rewarding. Above all, it will keep you alive.

Best wishes,

Ian

Of course, all this is academic. I cannot go back to being my 18-year-old self and if I could, I’d certainly not relate such a story in such detail, as firstly I wouldn’t listen, and secondly, I’d not want to take away the mystery of the adventure that was about to unfold. It has been a wonderful adventure! I have been so privileged.

But if there were just three things I’d hope to somehow get into the head of that young and rebellious man, they would be these:

Shout louder, sooner!

Do not suffer fools.

…And listen to more Bowie!