Judgement
WHEN I was studying at the Royal College of Art during the mid-Seventies and we learned how car studios work, it was exciting to discover what went on in there was considered very hush-hush. You didn’t talk about what you did there, certainly to the media. The idea of being a secretive backroom boy appeared quite glamorous to me, although once you get into a studio you realise they’re anything but glamorous.
However, I always found that element of being out of the limelight incredibly appealing.
It wasn’t until the original XJ220 prototype was revealed at the 1988 British Motor Show and I watched the reaction of those who saw it that the penny finally dropped that what we do as designers is a very public art.
Not only are we judged by the media – which most designers worry about – but more importantly in my view the consumers too since it’s they who will make the choice whether to buy our designs or not. For the rest of my career every time we did a launch of anything I’d been involved with I had a sense of fear that the public wouldn’t like what I’d done.
I had no idea the response the XJ220 would get when it was revealed and so the positive reaction it received was overwhelming. A few months later when we showed the car at a club event in Coventry I was again very apprehensive since I thought the purists wouldn’t like it since it’s not a classic Jaguar design. Thankfully they did.
Despite creating a good portfolio of successful designs over the years, I always had this trepidation before a launch.
For example, when the F-Type Concept was being photographed in 2000 for the official press images (as seen above), a few journalists were allowed to see the car before its official reveal at that year’s Detroit Auto Show. The first was Ken Gibson, The Sun newspaper’s well-respected and knowledgeable former motoring editor. When we did the interview beforehand in the pub he was very excited to see the car. Because his expectations were clearly sky high, I became very nervous and when I tried to manage these expectations by saying he might not like it, Ken replied all my other stuff had been
