Why car design is about calm

Whelan sat in the Goodwood Kennels at SpeedWeek last autumn and pulled out a little black box, with a ring inside it – Roosegard’s “smog free ring”. On the ring sits a contemporary jewel – a compressed block of carbon in a transparent cube. By buying one, you donate 1,000 cubed meters of clean air.

Whelan salutes this new idea of premium industrial design – reduced, simplified beauty that has a responsible provenance – and is trying to integrate it into his new family of Jaguars.

“Younger team members are pushing us,” Whelan freely admits, pointing out that the millennials and Gen Z-ers in his team challenge him to think about the planet and sustainability every day. “My team feels passionate about thought leadership – we feel an accountability, watching these David Attenborough films. What we can do in the next five to ten years is going to have such an influence, whether it’s metal-plating surfaces or how many parts we fit in one moulding or how we can design moulding or use 3D printers. We have to bring to life some of these ideas in an authentic change in the way we make cars.”

Long gone are the days of car designers sitting in splendid isolation with their team of scribblers, sketching silhouettes and moulding clay, then handing it over to finance and engineering departments. Now, with the new design studio at Gaydon, and especially in this time of lockdown, the design and engineering teams are all collaborating closely via Zoom calls where they watch the CAD models spin before delving in to look at surfaces, angles and parts – both the design and engineering data can be poured into the same CAD model for a team of 20 all to gather round virtually to examine. As Whelan says, “We’re not stylists any more. We have to take a vested interest in the method of make of the whole car”.

We talk about car doors, as an example. “You’ve got to think differently,” says Whelan. “In the past, we had interior design teams and colour/materials trim teams who apply finishes and trim [to the inside of a door], but actually, we should be designing doors from the ground up  – the method of make, how many components are in a door casing, what the structure is – how do we reduce parts, how do parts nest together? We also need to look at more sustainable finishes that can help plastics be recycled.”

Accountable (or sustainable, responsible, authentic, or whichever buzz word you want to use) design is necessary, but it isn’t quite the language of someone in their 50s, 60s or 70s, many of whom constitute a significant percentage of Jaguar’s market (and everyone’s – the average age of a new car buyer in the UK is 56). How do you make desirable cars that appeal to different generations? Luxury for a 70-year-old consumer might be about leather, wood and highly polished surfaces – the precise opposite of the vegan, minimalist interior that might suit a millennial with cash to burn. “For us, it’s talking about the whole experience – from tactility to overall impressions when you see a car and get into it. That’s bringing in sustainability as well as focusing on traditional materials like woods and leathers, but bringing a transparent approach to that.” In other words, you might have wood in a car but it would be carefully sourced from a managed supply.

“Luxury is about reducing things and coming to that essential point of showing beautiful, simple designs. And it’s about a real sense of calm which we’ve really brought into the 21MY F-Pace and I-Pace – visual harmony, calm and serenity. I know everyone talks about well-being but it’s also about peacefulness, and concentrating on the road. Within I-Pace you have different sound settings. I put mine on quiet – when I accelerate I love not hearing anything. The experience of driving a car now is less about the confusion and all-sensory experience, and more about peacefulness – the peace that you can get from electric cars is just amazing.”

Whelan offers me a “really inspiring” quote from a 1960s Jaguar MK X brochure: “Fitments are functional as well as luxurious. Unnecessary adornments are avoided, for superfluous touches would only distract from the theme of a Jaguar – good taste and correctness.” It just shows that, while trends come and go, good taste endures. “That could apply to a beautiful hotel room or a gorgeous B&O stereo,” says Whelan. Even now, it can really be applied to the most modern and forward-looking of luxury designs."

SpeedWeek image by Dominic James.