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Ex-Jaguar design boss Ian Callum starts his own design firm

A month ago, Ian Callum stepped down from his position as Jaguar's director of design. In a 20-year career with the English sports car maker, Callum's pen has traced the lines of everything from the original XK, the XJ, the F-Type, I-Pace, and more. Before that, he made use of employ at Aston Martin by contributing to the original DB7, the DB9, the previous Vantage, and the first Vanquish. After a career in service to OEMs that's been brilliant enough to earn him a CBE, for Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Callum has stepped up to take the reins at his eponymous design firm, called "Callum." Established with four fellow ex-Jaguar executives, Callum will design and engineer bespoke and limited-edition creations in the worlds of art, audio, automotive, fashion, lifestyle, and motorsports. The other trio of founding members are program director David Fairborn, engineering director Adam Donfrancesco, and commercial director Tom Bird. Fairbarn was the head of bespoke and special commissions at Jaguar Land Rover, where he helped bring the Lightweight E-Type to life. Donfrancesco left his role as engineering manager for JLR 's bespoke and special commissions; before that, he developed road and race cars like the Aston Martin GT8 and GT12. Bird, after stints at PWC and Barclays, had been commercial manager at JLR, where he shepherded the C-X75 concept into the James Bond movie Spectre. Callum said of the venture, "I wanted to get back to the essence of creativity; the challenge of producing something wonderful and personal. To design the alternative has always been my mantra, but always the beautiful alternative and something to enjoy." The man's still contracted to Jaguar as a brand ambassador, but at 64 years old, he feels "I've got maybe 15 years of design aptitude left, and I want to make the most of it." With 18 employees and based in a 20,000-square-foot facility in Warwick, the firm is ready right now with the engineering and manufacturing machinery to create products in-house. Even with the company's wide remit, we expect to see Callum take a stand in the automotive space. He admitted that he'd "like to take some of the cars I've designed and maybe redo them a little bit," but the team will always consider the entire vehicle, looking to upgrade dynamics and handling, too. We're told the first project will be announced soon.

Jaguar's next turnaround plan outlines a major shift to upmarket luxury

Jaguar wants to reinvent itself again, this time as a purveyor of EVs that competes in the luxury space dominated by Bentley. It outlined a turnaround plan written to help it move upmarket while launching a new range of models. Company boss Thierry Bollore, a French industry veteran who briefly ran Renault in the late 2010s, told British magazine Auto Express he wants Jaguar to represent what he described as "modern luxury." He added his vision of modern luxury is "extremely reductive" in terms of refinement, modernity, engineering, and technologies. Jaguar said it will go EV-only, yet it scrapped the next-generation XJ at the 11th hour in 2021 because the sedan didn't fit its image of a re-imagined brand. Making Jaguar synonymous with "modern luxury" requires starting from scratch. "The situation at Jaguar was really a concern from outside," said Bollore after revealing Renault looked at purchasing Jaguar-Land Rover in the late 2010s, "and more than a concern from inside, because the brand has been damaged to a certain extent." That's why the turnaround plan calls for a blank slate to rebuild Jaguar on. Design work for an entirely new range of Jaguar models has been completed, the executive affirmed, and Auto Express speculates the portfolio will initially consist of three models: a two-door sports car (likely a follow-up to the F-Type) and a pair of crossovers. Note that there's no sedan on the horizon. These three cars will ride on the same modular architecture, though it's too early to tell if it will be developed in-house or shared with another carmaker. They'll wear a new design language that was forged by holding an internal contest three teams participated in. Competing with Bentley, among other carmakers, will require convincing customers to pay six-digit sums. "Luxury starts not far from GBP100,000," said Bollore, a figure which represents about $140,000 at the current conversion rate. As of writing, none of Jaguar's models start above $100,000, though some cross that threshold once options are piled on. Its cheapest model, the E-Pace, starts at $39,950. Its most expensive is the electric I-Pace at $69,850. No one would pay $140,000 for an E-Pace, even if it's electric and brimming with tech, so Jaguar's upcoming models will all be relatively large. That doesn't mean Bollore will put a leaping cat emblem on a Land Rover Range Rover and call it a good job well done. He wants to ensure the two sister brands coexist without overlapping.

2019 Jaguar F-Pace SVR First Drive Review | Magnificent beast

ST. TROPEZ, France — Summarizing a new car in just two words is a wicked challenge, but here goes: Magnificent beast. That's the nickname Jaguar's engineering team gave the 2019 F-Pace SVR, and ... spoiler alert ... it's actually a damn fine descriptor for the 550-horsepower sport ute. The hot-rod SUV genre has been endlessly expanding, pioneered by the likes of the Porsche Cayenne. Recent contenders like the Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio and Mercedes-AMG GLC 63 keep the competition on its toes by busting Nurburgring Nordschleife lap records that shamed supercars from just a few years ago. The Jaguar F-Pace SVR arrives a tad late to the high-speed party. Previously available with as much as 380 horsepower from a supercharged V6, the new SVR plays ball packing a 5.0-liter V8 beneath its vented hood. The supercharged mill punches 550 hp and 502 lb-ft through an eight-speed ZF automatic. Power is routed to all four wheels, naturally, but the SVR is also the first F-Pace to get torque vectoring thanks to an electronically controlled rear differential. Also aiding the F-Pace through the corners are stiffer springs, reprogrammed adaptive Bilstein dampers, 12-inch forged aluminum wheels and a brake-based torque vectoring system. Additional go-fast goodies include lift-reducing aero, better engine ventilation, and larger four-piston front and two-piston rear ventilated brakes housed in larger 21-inch wheels. The F-Pace SVR's cabin offers more sporty austerity than before. Slimmer, supportive 10-way adjustable seats echo the SUV's more focused road manners, as do aggressive color schemes, contrast stitching, and a suede headliner. Small touches also signal the sharper edges, including an F-Type-derived shifter in place of the mediocre rotary gear selector. It doesn't inherit Jaguar's latest dual-screen infotainment system, updated steering wheel, or second-gen heads up display, as does the recently updated XE sedan. The F-Pace SVR shares a similar tune to the 575-hp F-Type SVR, but the SUV's V8 fires up with a milder bark. A new exhaust valve adjusts its butterfly valves gradually, avoiding the "light switch" transition from quiet to loud. And speaking of loud, while the blarty exhaust note isn't as in-your-face as some of Jaguar's more vocal models, U.S. versions might be slightly raspier since the European model I was driving was equipped with a gasoline particulate filter that has a slight muffling effect.