Wedge King
After a stint at Jaguar, Oliver Winterbottom pioneered the truffle-hunting stance for Lotus and TVR – creating some of automotive history’s most recognisable silhouettes
He rummages through a pile of page proofs before finding his lighter. Our host, car designer and Britain’s own ‘ wedge king’ Oliver Winterbottom, then sparks up another cigarette before elucidating further on the dangers of retirement. ‘It’s quite simple – if you’re someone who is used to being busy, you become very bored, very quickly,’ he says, although groans is probably closer. ‘ You need to stay occupied. That is part of the reason why I did the book. By book, he means the hugely entertaining A Life in Car Design. ‘I’ve always loved cars,’ he says. ‘I cannot remember a time when I didn’t. My father was a great enthusiast, and competed at club level in order to get an international competition licence.
‘He and a friend then did the 1952 Monte Carlo Rally in a bog- standard Hillman Minx. His whole circle of friends was into motor racing. I can remember being dragged into the Steering Wheel Club for lunch and told to sit quietly; Stirling Moss was there as was Froilán González. Father was also a senior doctor at Silverstone from the track’s instigation in 1948.’
Another family friend was Ian Boswell, proprietor of coachbuilder Tickford prior to its sale to Aston Martin. ‘He was a very forward-looking chap and had one of the first Citroën DS19S in the UK. Well, he came to dinner one evening and praised a drawing I’d done of a car, which was very encouraging for an 11-year- old. From then on I knew what I was going to do with my life.’
And it was via another family friend, Jaguar mainstay ‘Lofty’ England, that Winterbottom kicked off his design odyssey in 1961. The then 17-year- old worked on experimental fighting vehicles for the Daimler division before moving on to more sporting fare.
Five years later he earned a design award sponsored by Bertone. ‘It was a bit fraught as I thought I only had three weeks to do it. Actually, I had five months. There had been a translation error…
‘I joined Jaguar’s styling department roughly halfway through my apprenticeship. The team only comprised three people so I saw a lot of Sir William Lyons. He was always encouraging. He couldn’t draw, but he had a wonderful eye for design. He knew what he wanted; what worked. It all got very political, though, and certain factions made life hard. The XJ-S was probably the reason why I left. I did a quarter- scale model, which Sir William liked. He then asked for it to be built full- scale. The metal workers made the panels too wide over the rear wheels: when the mock up was put on the floor, they were miles inboard of the bodywork. You could