Design and desire
MY COLUMN in Jaguar World has led to some surprising consequences over the years, none more so than former editor Paul Walton’s suggestion that I write an autobiography. Well out of my comfort zone, I took on the challenge, which is now to be published by Porter Press and launched at the Literary Festival at Silverstone on 2 December, 2023.
Writing the book has made me think about my past and what I’ve found interesting is that my career seems to make more sense now that when I was in the thick of it. I guess I now have the benefit of hindsight.
My career has been really unusual not only because it led me from Jaguar and cars to medical imaging, MRI and product design but design freedom within the car industry itself. With four of my five sports car designs I had the opportunity to express my ideas uncompromised by the usual interference of politics and design committees.
I explain in the book why virtually all of these projects were outside the normal process. This started with the first – the XJ41 – that I worked on in the early Eighties with Jaguar’s founder, Sir William Lyons, since no one would have dared question his judgement on design.
Something else I’ve found surprising is how far back I’ve been fascinated by cars. I’ve never been good at walking and when I think back to being a toddler, I always felt much more comfortable moving about on wheels than I did on my feet. This started on my little tricycle with the pedals on the front wheel before moving on to a pedal car which I used to drive myself to nursery school! This early interest in automobiles would guide the rest of my career.
MY CAREER SEEMS TO MAKE MORE SENSE NOW THAT WHEN I WAS IN THE THICK OF IT
I had to process all of this for the book and I describe how one thing led to another, how I started by redesigning a Triumph Spitfire in Plaster of Paris before studying at London’s Royal College of Art – where, as part of the degree, I designed my only car with a hard-edged design typical of the era, the Citroen-based GS8 (a scale model
