Jaguar Design Chief Imagines the Future

If you look back at pictures of beautiful cars, Jaguar is perhaps the most admired among all for its legendary 1961 E-Type model. It’s the sports car that made car design a noble pursuit for young artists — and one that still inspires present day designers.

Jaguar Design Director Julian Thomson is the third person to hold the Jaguar design chief job since the British car company’s inception and is primed to take Jaguar into its next era of design. Case in point is the XF sports sedan model revealed this fall.

Over his two decades at Jaguar, Thomson has had a firm hand on the brand’s direction. I spoke with Thomson earlier in the year, as he was at home in quarantine, in a reflective mode, looking back at his own design career, and ahead to Jaguar’s future. Here are excerpts from our conversation while Thomson was at home in Leamington-Spa, England.

On design thinking:

“I was hoping it would be a good time for reflection, you know, to really sit back and look at what we're,” he told me. “We've been thinking about our brand of Jaguar, what's our design philosophy, what we’re about? And so we it's a good option to just step back from the bigger picture. We have a new generation of cars to really work out, you know, how to take the brand forward. I think you have to pick out the best in the brand. Jaguar has never been a really flashy brand. It’s always been understated and tasteful and intelligent. We have to make sure that coming out of this we have to be sure our cars have a genuine purpose in this world, that they're very clean. We're heavily committed to electrification and that they are very healthy cars, all the materials that go into them, and make sure the environment we create inside the cars is very good. Also they should be very, very soothing. Our approach to luxury has been about warmth and relaxation and a place that is really calm.

On driving:

In terms of this is lock down I really suddenly really miss driving, you know? Not driving fast or driving like mad, just driving. Jaguar has always been about this unique experience of driving a car, really enjoying a driving experience, driving the journey. And that richness of that driving experience is great and important to us going forward. That's very important going forward, so we've just got to work on that. We've got to find driving experiences which aren't necessarily all about speed and performance and turning around corners as quickly and as noisy as possible. We’ve got to think about travel experience in cars that are automated, which is very enriching and enjoyable as well. These are all things which fit well with our brand and things we were doing already. I think it fits as well with the future, whatever is going to happen. We're not going to change our brand drastically.

On becoming a car designer:

I guess I was one of those little weird kids who used to draw cars and never stopped drawing them. But I never drew other people’s cars. I always invented my own. I always drew lots of imaginary concept vehicles. And I've always done that. I haven't done anything else, to be honest. I am not an expert in architecture or art or anything else. I’m a car nut.

Can you imagine what it's like to actually be able to draw something on the back of an envelope and then someone gives you millions of pounds to actually go and make this thing real? You see it driving around in the street years later. That's something your team created. That's an incredible privilege. Any car, no matter what it is, has a level of enthusiasm, has some sort of a fan base, has a following, and people are really, watching it. To have a brand like Jaguar, which is so important in automotive culture. that's a great privilege and honor and a responsibility to take that on. I'm only the third design director of Jaguar in its history.

“Jaguar has never been a really flashy brand”

On his archive:

I have been clearing out my attic, actually, the last few weeks and looking at my old drawings. I was obsessed with a lot of the Italian coach builders in those days in the 70s, really. That little hub in Italy where all cars were designed. There were a lot of concept cars coming out of America as well. The Detroit (motor show) used to be a huge event, as you know, much bigger than it is now. And then, you know, the Italian motor shows were huge. All the concept cars were inspiring. I was surprised to look back and see I drew a lot of Jaguars. I drew lot of future sports cars and a lot of Jaguars were in there.

On modern day car design:

If you look at layouts of cars which are gone in the 50s, you know, they were just simple. You’ve got an engine, a car, there’s plenty of space to put these things in. You know, there's not much in the car, the 50s and 60s. It was much easier to put cars together then. It's a very complex now. Rather than having a team of five people design it, we have 300 in design, just doing Jaguar design, and then we have another 10,000 engineers making these cars happen. It’s just a matter of integrating all those different types of people and all those different types of disciplines. The communication amongst the team is really important for a design team. You've got to have something which reflects the marketplace a bit more. You know, you can't just design for Middle-Aged White American European males anymore. That's how car buyers used to be. We have to really focus on getting far more females into our cars, younger people, a wider section of ethnic backgrounds as well.We must have a very diverse workforce.

On what’s next:

I think it's like saying, you know, you get your heritage or legacy can be your greatest asset or you can be the biggest anchor that holds you back your career and how you play that balance is really critical. Jaguar itself has got examples, you know, leading up to about 2000, where it just got too hung up on its heritage, too protective over it, and it lost its relevance, you know. We spent the last 20 years with Ian Callum really modernizing the brand, getting more contemporary. But I think going forward, we probably can afford to reference Jaguar more and what it stood for. We can look at that legacy. You know, that's what my group is. We are custodians of that legacy, and that's what we're very proud to be part of. And so we want to reference it and build on it. And, you know, hopefully maybe make it better.

What inspires him:

In the studio a few weeks ago we had two E types in there. We had an old XJ.C. We've had some of the racing cars in there. Can you imagine an environment which has those icons surrounding you? You have clay models next to them with the next generation cars. We've got to do something which doesn't pale in comparison to those cars. That’s very important to us, that we can we carry on that we create that same excitement. And that's a challenge. You've got young designers, in their early 20s and come in and you give them a team of modelers and a huge lump of clay. You put the modelers next to the E-type and say, I want something as good as that please. You know, that's quite a challenge. You can imagine the excitement.

On the next generation of car designers

We have fewer petrol heads. When I was in college, there were all petrol heads. They’re a more serious bunch now, the young designers. They’re much more responsible, they're much more concerned. They want to have a greater purpose in life than perhaps people of my generation did when they were 20. And that's good to see as well. They want to create product which has some significance such meaning. They don’t want to be part of a sausage machine which chucks out cars that don’t really broaden technology innovation or aesthetics. It's very important to them.

On concept cars:

The Jaguar CX-75 concept car. photo courtesy of JLR.

We've done some great concept cars in the past and concept cars are good because they're concentrated. You take about six months and literally within it seems in weeks you’re working through the night and you're bolting on the wheels that's coming out of the paint shop and its finished. It's a quick as you can get to actually sketching something and it suddenly appears. They’re always late. They're always a panic. They always appear at four o'clock in the morning. And there's a guy, an angry guy with a truck wanting to take it away. That’s the bit where you just drop it down on its wheels. And that's the magic being created really quickly. That’s always the most exciting moments for me when we finish a concept car, because it is a whole process concentrated down to a much shorter timescale.

On his favorite car design moment:

The CX-75. That was actually completed on my birthday. I worked through the night. I don't often work through the night, I'll be honest with you. They gave me a little cupcake at midnight and the car wasn’t finished yet. We were late. We finished at 10 AM .That's a spectacular car.

What’s next for Jaguar

There’s no secret we have a new XJ coming. After the E type, it's probably the most famous in the Jaguar brand. And it was truly significant. The first couple that came really broke the mold of that type of vehicle. All our plans are up in the air now because of what we're going through at the moment. But, you know, you've seen pictures of that car testing. It's a spectacular vehicle. It's every inch a modern, innovative Jaguar fit for the modern world. And, you know, we can't wait to get that one out.

Jaguar Design Chief Imagines the Future

Jaguar Design Director Julian Thomson On Moving Forward While Still