STYLE COUNCIL
When a top international car designer’s personal penchant is for a modified 993, it affirms the choice of all Porsche owners. We visit Ian Callum CBE for a lesson in the love of cars…
Gloating is never a good emotion, but when you discover one of the world’s greatest car stylists uses a classic Porsche as his daily driver, a feeling of warm smugness is forgivable, especially considering the man in question is noted for some of the best offerings from Jaguar and Aston Martin in modern times. I’m visiting Ian Callum at his Warwick-based design centre, Callum. Centre stage in the workshop-cum-studio of the firm’s industrial estate headquarters is a pair of reimagined Aston Martin Vanquishes, among the most recent models to flow from Ian’s prolific drawing board.
He hails from Dumfries. Fifty-four years ago, at the age of thirteen (you do the maths), he submitted a rendering for a car design to Bill Haynes, Chief Engineer at Jaguar. In 1979, after graduating with a degree in Industrial Design, he started work at Ford, going on to contribute to the RS200 and Escort Cosworth projects. In 1990, he joined design consultant, Peter Stevens, alongside Tom Walkinshaw at TWR Design, with standout projects including development of the Aston Martin DB7 and Nissan R390 GT1. From 1999, Ian was design director at Jaguar and Aston Martin, responsible for the DB9 and V8 Vantage, the F-type and XE (among others), and earning the CBE in 2019, the year he set up his eponymous design
agency. In his gentle Scottish brogue, he tells me about his car life, his influences and some of his favourite projects.
His personal stable, so I discover, stretches to twelve vehicles, although he is notably vague when it comes to their whereabouts. “When I start listing them, I forget which ones I’ve got, because they’re all over the place,” he laughs. “Three of them are actually in dry dock getting worked on, which is convenient because I’ve got nowhere else to put them. I’ve got a place down in Dorset where I keep two cars, and that’s where my Beetle Cabriolet is destined to go, making room for my Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GTV restoration, which is about to be finished.”
JAM SESSION
The Beetle 1303 he refers to is presently being delivered to a lock-up elsewhere in Warwick. I give him a lift in my 987 Boxster S. Chatting en route, I learn more about the Callum collection. “As well as the 993, I own a 914, which is currently being built by Tuthill Porsche. I gave the company a box of parts which I’d bought and had the body re-done in French blue. And I’ve got this Beetle Cabriolet, which is my third air-cooled Volkswagen. I just love the simplicity of them. Additionally, I own a couple of American hot-rods, including a 1967 Chevy pick-up truck. I’ve got the Alfa, a TR6, a 1976 Jaguar
XJ coupé, plus a classic Mini. I’ve also got a Volkswagen van and a BMW 6 series.” What about cars he’s personally designed? “Oh, yes!” he roars. “I’ve got a Vanquish. I forgot about that!
It’s just a standard Vanquish S, but I’m looking to sell because it’s the car I drive least, though it is the only car in my collection which I’ve designed.” I find this admission surprising, but Ian is quick with explanation. “When you live with a design for so long, in this case from its very inception, you have a love for it, but a bit like teenage children, once they’re grown up, there’s every chance you want them to go away and leave you alone!” All said in jest, of course, though if I’d produced something as beautiful as a Vanquish, I’d have it living in my kitchen. Actually, Ian has done something similar with his 993 — his Dorset home features an indoor floor-to-ceiling glass window with a view through to his garage, ensuring the beautiful Porsche is visible from his sitting room.
Like many red-blooded
petrolheads, Ian has participated in his fair share of trackdays, though he’s not had a go at racing. “I was a bit of a hoodlum in my younger days,” he tells me. “I enjoyed being invited to attend track events with dealerships, but I’ve never actually raced. It’s one of my biggest regrets — I would have liked to have learned how to race a car properly.” Clearly, then, speed and performance are always at the back of his mind, despite the need as a Jaguar corporate stylist to come up with saloons and SUVS for the
ROOCK MIGHT NOT BE AS WIDELY KNOWN AS OTHER GERMAN PORSCHE TUNERS, BUT IT WAS HUGELY SUCCESSFUL IN SPORTS CAR RACING
masses. “In my twenty years with Jaguar, I got to drive many quick vehicles, including my own F-type company cars. Currently, I’m in possession of a 500bhp SVR F-type. You get used to that magnitude of horsepower. When it comes to old cars, you realise they may have been quite potent in their time, but dashing to 60mph from rest in nine seconds is nothing to shout about today. Nevertheless, I love driving my 993, not only because I always wanted a 911, but also because I love air-cooled engines. Much like the Beetles I’ve owned, with a classic Porsche, you have the engagement of simply driving and steering the thing. There’s mechanical empathy, as well as the joy brought on by simply looking at the car.”
Now we’re getting into the design aesthetic. “The classic 911 Turbo was always my poster car,” Ian reveals. “That said, from the moment it was launched, I’ve always regarded
the 993 as representing the 911’s finest form. Some designers have offered criticism, complaining the line of the car stretches from the front to the rear without going back in again. I remember Peter Stephens suggesting the 993 doesn’t have the purity of the wheel arch coming back into the form of the bumper, front and rear, like earlier 911s did. But when you look how much room there is to achieve this, I can understand why the design was executed the way it was. It also elongates the sense of the rear wing. So, for me, aesthetically, the 993 is the prettiest 911. And, of course, this was the last air-cooled 911, before water-cooling and the rapid increase in the model’s overall size — it got quite big after this.” It sure did.
BEAT SURRENDER
What does Callum — the company — do? Full disclosure would find me dead in a ditch, but Ian can reveal some of what his team works on. “It’s three-fold,” he remarks. “We carry out work for outside clients, undertakings which can remain confidential, whether it be for volume-production or individual cars. We also collaborate with brands outside the automotive world. That said, we’re developing a car with Hungary-based super-luxury EV outfit, Kincsem, which will result in a hybrid hyper-gt inspired by the Jaguar C-X75. We’re taking care of the body and other design work.” Callum also collaborated with Prodrive in the design of a contender for the Dakar rally. Specifically, the brief was to “design a vehicle which can go through hell in the desert and look good doing it.” Ian teases by saying Callum has a several similarly structured projects on the go right now, but can’t yet bring the detail to light.
Talking of teasing, I get a glimpse of several classic 911 shells in the back regions. “Naturally, we work on our own projects, which we fund ourselves. Again, we’ll be a bit more public about this work later. It’s important to note, Callum is still a young company. In the not-too-distant future, it
ONCE WE’VE COMPLETED A FEW CIRCUITS, IAN GOES BACK TO HIS DRAWING BOARD AND HANDS ME THE KEYS TO HIS 993