The outlook for Jaguar

It's well known that flying from Europe to Australia can knock you around. Ian Callum can certainly attest to that, having made the trip a few times over the years.

The Director of Design at Jaguar has been out here in the past working for Ford Australia and HSV – you can see his work in the elegant spokes of the VS Senator from the mid 1990s. And Callum's son lives in Melbourne, so there's also a personal reason for making the long-haul trip.

Out here as a guest of Jaguar Land Rover Australia for the local launch of the F-Pace last week, Callum was feeling pretty weary by the time I put questions to him concerning the future for Jaguar.

No doubt the future event he probably looked forward to most was a refreshing ale followed by a long kip in a comfy bed. But Callum is a professional, and he readily soldiered on, answering questions from a journalist, as he has often done in the past. We started off on the wrong foot (see breakout below), before pinning down topics Callum was more willing to discuss.

Anyway, moving right along...

Jaguar and Land Rover are quintessentially British, but other car companies retain their cultural identity, despite sometimes 'outsourcing' projects to design annexes and studios in other parts of the world. The reverse of the Australian situation, where we're trying to focus and concentrate all our R&D resources here, would Jaguar Land Rover export its R&D assets?

"We have considered putting studios in other parts of the world, really for influence and the availability of people who want to live in that part of the world. California is the obvious one," Callum said.

"China is the other one, and we discussed the idea. Both Gerry [McGovern, Callum's counterpart at Land Rover] and I discussed the idea, and we haven't come up with any decision, genuinely...

"It will be on the table for awhile until we feel the time is right. I'm sure one day we probably will, but it won't be for a long time yet."

If and when that happens, the off-shore facilities won't be taking the lead necessarily. Callum anticipates the broad-brush plan will remain the preserve of the company's Design and Engineering Centre in Gaydon, Warwickshire.

"The cars are designed specifically in the cycle plan, and they would probably end up being engineered and overall designed in the UK," Callum confirmed.

"All these studios are there to put some kind of different, alternative inputs, from different alternative designers who just don't happen to be living in the UK. We can feed it into our system in the UK and that could make some decisions, some debate on; that's how they work.

"Some of the designs you see coming out of BMW originated in California, but they'll find their way back to Munich and they'll be developed there. They're really just inspiration pulls, they're nothing more than that. And they wouldn't be there to design a separate model for a specific country."

Selling European style around the world doesn't seem to pose much of a challenge, based on the respective experiences of Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar Land Rover and Volvo. Are there, in fact different cultural tastes in styling?

"A lot of Chinese ask me: 'What are you going to do for the Chinese public?" Callum responded.

"I say: 'Well, if I did a Chinese Jaguar it wouldn't be a British car anymore – and that's what you want'.

"We put a little bit more glitter on the long-wheelbase XF, because the Chinese like a little bit more chromework on them.

"If I was to put it on the western one as well, I don't think anyone would particularly notice the difference.

"We're finding the chrome on some models of cars [is] becoming more obvious now again – coming back into fashion. It could well be led by Chinese... subtly."

Mention chrome and people tend to cast their minds back to the styling excesses of the 1950s. Jaguar has been through a retro-style period that celebrated the company's cars from that era through to the 1970s. Callum joined Jaguar at the tail end of that phase. He's happy to wave it goodbye, but says little about any future styling direction for Jaguar.

"I don't know yet, it hasn't happened," he said, but it's unlikely to be a revolutionary change (or counter-revolutionary, as in the case of Jaguar's retro decade).

"We're going to evolve where we are. There's no reason to tear it up and start again.

"We tore it up and started again 10 years ago, or thereabouts, because it had to happen; it wasn't in the right place. We had to get the foundations in place; I'm glad to say I think we've got the foundations in place now.

"We will evolve the designs as we know them. Yes, things will change. Probably the face will change, but I don't want a sudden revolution of changing at this point, because we've got a common look that we can move forward with..."

Despite Callum's apparent disdain for the retro look, he admits that there are "still some heritage cues for Jaguar design" in the current models.

"There's a subtle difference there; if you do the retro thing with the Mk II grille, or the DLO [Daylight Opening – side glass] of the S-Type or whatever... that's retro – and it looks old.

"I have no problems with putting indications of the past into a car. BMW do it in every car of course.

"If you didn't know where it came from it's got to sit with today's understanding of taste...

"That tail light there [on the F-Pace SUV], if I say it comes off an E-Type, and some aficionados and anoraks would recognise that – I'd say 'great'. If somebody sees it for the first time [and] they've never seen an E-Type, they shrug their shoulders; they'd still think it's great – or it's good enough.

"So it's only a starting point; what you end up with... is what matters.

"They [current grilles] were inspired by early XJs. The reason I chose that is because I like the grille. I prefer it to the Series II and III. There's something a bit bold about them – and it's the last car that [Sir William] Lyons did.

"All my other designers didn't even know what a bloody XJ was. Too young...

"They were all born in 1975 or something. Some of them were born in 1990..."

Ah, the much maligned younger generation... Callum's junior designers of today will be tomorrow's old-age pensioners of tomorrow – being ferried down to the bowls club in a self-driving "mobile living room", to use Callum's description.

Autonomous motoring potentially opens up new vistas for stylists. We've already seen a self-driving concept with no windscreen. And assuming the technology reaches that point, designers could do away with the steering wheel, re-package the car more like a booth in a fast-food restaurant – or whatever.

Callum is quite clear, he doesn't welcome that prospect at all.

"I can't and won't think in those terms... because I don't think I'll be designing Jaguars by the time that happens," he said.

"I hope not. I've got no desire to design a Jaguar without a steering wheel.

"It's inevitable that some car companies and some products will end up that way."

And what about the windscreen? There is a precedent…

"Doesn't mean it's right though, does it?" Callum replies.

"Autonomous will happen; there'll be two stages of autonomous, and the second stage will be almost by nature the choice of the customer rather than mandatory.

"But the first part will be current cars we've got will have autonomous capability – of a safe degree...

"That doesn't affect what we're doing; we may have controls that move around more to give you more space when you don't need them, adjust to whatever you need to do in the car.

"But when you think of the safety ramifications of moving people around in the car to suit autonomous driving, it's quite difficult. Seat belts have got to stay in one place, they've got to be locked down...

"So I don't think it's going to affect us very much; it'll be a technical challenge, definitely.

"Electrical cars will be much more of a mind change than autonomous ones, in terms of design. The second stage of autonomous will be... mobile living rooms. I have no feelings toward them whatsoever. I'm sure they'll happen. I'm sure at some point somebody will sit there and say: 'In Jaguar and Land Rover this is going to be our criteria for the next car – we don't want a steering wheel'.

"But I honestly don't see it happening while I'm working there... I hope not.

"At that point, even then, there will be a particular car people choose to have... but they'll still be buying cars they can drive. I'm quite sure of that."

Callum believes that legislation to mandate autonomous motoring – should that happen as foretold – doesn't have to mean the end of the road for drivers. There are already brands like Ariel or Caterham, for instance, that specialise in building weekend-racer track cars. According to the Jaguar styling chief, that's unlikely to change with the advent of viable autonomous cars.

"Someone once said to me that it will be like the horse. You'll go and enjoy riding your horse, you'll race a horse; the horse becomes a point of pleasure. Cars may well become the same thing.

"Your everyday transport will be sort of mediocre boredom; you'll look at your emails and be miserable.

"There'll be always somebody out there – whether it's a revolutionary, revolting against the system – [who] will take their 50-year old Caterham out and upset everybody. They'll be smuggling fuel in from somewhere.

"That will carry on, I'm quite convinced of it..."

JLR won't talk about the 'BREXIT'
The interview with Ian Callum got off to a rocky start when Callum and JLR Australia PR boss Tim Krieger backed away from commenting on the 'BREXIT' – the British referendum that has ended the career of prime minister David Cameron and commits the UK to leaving the European Union.

It's easy to understand why; a careless comment from a jet-lagged exec could whip up a whole new storm of controversy in Britain, where the situation remains highly volatile in the aftermath of the referendum.

Yet Callum was willing to offer his view that Britain could continue to make its own way in the international community, whether or not as part of Europe.

"What I will say is, given what we've got, I think Britons understand that it's not politicians determine the character of a country, not at this level anyway. They might do if it's a dictatorship..." he said.

"'Cool Britannia' was not created to be part of Europe, so not all is lost. I'm pretty sure we'll work it through."

In engineering terms, the BREXIT will have little effect on the complexion of Jaguar and Land Rover products, says Callum. Britain may not be part of Europe for much longer – from a legislative and economic standpoint at least – but it would remain highly dependent on Europe for sales of its Jaguars and Land Rovers. And that means the cars built for the continent will continue to be designed and manufactured within the same legislative framework as they are now.

"It won't change anything," Callum said in that regard. "We'll still design cars for Europe; our standards will still be European."

And due to the closer harmonisation of Australian Design Rules with Europe in recent years, it's unlikely there'll be any drastic changes for locally-delivered cars. Don't hold out hope for right-hand drive Jaguars with the indicator stalk on the right side of the steering column, for instance.

"Most legislation, you've gotta follow some mass," Callum continued. "It's either got to be Federal... US; it's gotta be European or Chinese..."

At this point, Tim Krieger offered his observation that there are various countries that are located geographically in Europe, but are not member states within the EU. This does not adversely affect them trading with EU members.

"Switzerland is in the same boat," Krieger said. "They're not part of the European Union but they adhere to all the relevant legislation."

An immediate consequence of the referendum has been a weaker pound, providing JLR with a competitive advantage in global markets. JLR Australia MD Matthew Wiesner told motoring.com.au that the slump in the value of the pound after the BREXIT referendum had been held eased pressure on the local arm.

"We'll wait and see. With the weakening of the pound it's given us a bit of a currency advantage for the moment," Wiesner said.

"We were under pressure previously anyway, we've been absorbing a little bit of pain.

"So... if anything at least it's taken some pressure off of us...

"Our view was that probably the Aussie was going to weaken further as we head into the back end of this year...

"We talk to our banks and so forth, who advise us on where they see things trending... that was the view that we were working on...

"This is coming out of completely left field, obviously, which seems to have taken away some of that pressure for now, but quite frankly who knows what that means?"

Leaving aside BREXIT as an issue, JLR Australia could reduce its sensitivity to currency exchange rate fluctuations by sourcing cars from countries other than the UK. But Wiesner doesn't anticipate local-specification cars being supplied by JLR's factory in China, although there is a possibility that plants in Slovakia and Brazil could ship cars here in the future.

"You need to have an agreement with the Chinese government to be able to actually export," Wiesner explained.

"So there [is] a number of other things that would need to be in place before we could even consider that.

"It's quite a unique structure they have over there; you effectively need to have an export licence. The investment made there today is purely for their domestic needs. In the future who knows?

"We've just recently opened a production facility in Brazil... which produces Discovery Sport and Evoque... I think XE is coming soon...

"That is a full production facility, so who's to say that one day maybe some of those entry-type products may become an option.

"We made the announcement about Slovakia couple of months ago. That takes some pressure off the UK and allows a bit of a mix of production base for Europe too and the others have done it. The Germans have done it for a long time. Having all of your focus in one country, with unions and other things, sometimes [involves] risk around having all your eggs in one particular location. Sensible stuff..."