The heroes of Ian Callum

After a 20 year reign, Ian Callum is stepping down as design boss of Jaguar.

Callum is widely credited with rejuvenating the design ethos at the storied firm, and reinventing the company in the process with some striking designs in models like the XK GT car of 2006, the XF of 2008, and most recently the new I-Pace electric-powered SUV.

A few years ago Autocar asked him to name his personal heroes, and some of the names may come as a surprise:

Bill Mitchell

"I grew up obsessed with cars and car design, truly obsessed with it,” Callum said. “I didn't have many heroes in the conventional sense, I was too tied up in my own life. But one name I did know was Bill Mitchell (1912-1988)." [Mitchell was GM's design boss after Harley Earl]

Bill Mitchell

"When I was a kid in the 'sixties it was the American car designers who were really pushing it, and Bill Mitchell was responsible for some of the best-looking cars ever produced - the '65 Buick Riviera (pictured) is still a personal favourite of mine."

Giorgetto Giugiaro

"Then there were the Italian carrozarri, the styling houses. Giorgetto Giugiaro (born 1938) really caught my eye, I knew who he was. He designed these amazing cars that broke all the moulds, and as a rebellious teenager, that was a good thing.

"Years later when I was at college in Glasgow I won a travel bursary and I went to see him, but I only glimpsed him for 15 seconds when he passed me on the stairs. I'd gone all that way but he was too busy, which was a bit upsetting."

Giorgetto Giugiaro

“I reminded him about it years later when I was design boss at Aston Martin and he was presenting the Twenty Twenty concept that he'd done, but I don’t think he remembered it."

Editor’s note: first seen at the 2001 Geneva motor show, the Twenty Twenty was made from extruded aluminium, plastic and carbon fibre with power for the fully functioning prototype provided by a 6.0-litre V12 engine.

Syd Mead

Other early influences included Syd Mead (born 1933), a former Ford designer and science-fiction artist who created the futuristic cars in Blade Runner and Tron - "but everyone was into him" - and automotive artist Dexter Brown - "so vibrant yet so tangible."

Jim Clark

What about non-car designers? Whose picture did the teenage Callum have pinned to his bedroom wall?

"Number one, I'd have to say, was Jim Clark (1936-1968). I lived in Dumfries and he was from Duns, both in the south of Scotland, and that was enough for me. I had images of Lotus 49s everywhere, and he had to be driving them. I only saw him compete once, I think it was the RAC Rally, and the car went past me in a flash. But when he died I took it very personally, it was my first real experience of tragedy I think."

David Bowie

"Then there was David Bowie (1947-2016), of course. I was a huge fan of his sheer creative energy. I was 18 or 19 years old and I was into the whole glam rock thing, the haircuts, the platform-soled boots, everything."

Peter Stevens

After this modest teenage rebellion, Callum went onto study industrial design in Glasgow, before becoming one of the first generation to take the now-famous car design course at the Royal College of Art in London.

"There were loads of inspirational characters. My tutor in Glasgow was a guy called Geoff Bonner and he'd actually designed a car once, a beach buggy. He really inspired me to believe that I could become a designer myself.

"And in London I met Peter Stevens (born 1943, pictured) who went onto style the McLaren F1]. I wouldn't say that Peter was exactly a hero, because he's a good friend and that would go to his head, but he certainly taught me how to draw and how to communicate the design of a car."

Ian Callum today

So how does Callum cope with his status as a heroic figure to a new generation of wannabe car designers?

"I feel flattered when people say that, but I also feel slightly over-rated. I've been very lucky to get where I am, circumstances have been good to me. And I feel a huge sense of responsibility to give guidance and to try and inspire people. On the other hand I've no wish to be this grandad of design, I don't want anyone thinking "who's this old man?"

"I want to leave this job on a high, not as somebody struggling to live up to past glories. Things change and one day that change will overtake me, and I hope I'll recognise it when it happens."

Ian Callum’s career

1955: Born Dumfries, Scotland. Educated at Glasgow School of Art, Coventry School of Transportation Design and the Royal College of Art, London.

1979: Designer, Ford Motor Company. Worked on RS200 and Escort Cosworth, latterly manager of Ghia Design Studio in Turin.

1991: Chief Designer, TWR Design. Created the Aston Martin DB7 and Vantage and worked on the Ford Puma, Volvo C70 and Nissan R390.

1999: Design Director, Jaguar Cars. After accepting a job running Jaguar's advanced design studio, Callum was promoted to overall control of the brand's design after the sudden death of Geoff Lawson.

Cars designed at Jaguar: Jaguar XK (2006), Jaguar XF (2008), Jaguar XJ (2009), Jaguar C-X75 (2010), Jaguar F-Type (2013), Jaguar XE (2014), Jaguar F-Pace (2015), Jaguar XF (2015), Jaguar E-Pace (2017), Jaguar I-Pace (2018 - pictured)