Ian Callum is a British car designer who currently serves as Design Director for Jaguar and is the older brother to fellow car designer Moray Callum. He is married, has two sons and currently resides in Oxfordshire, England.

Early years[link]

Callum was born in Dumfries, Scotland,^[1] in 1954. In 1968 (at the age of 14) he submitted a car design to Jaguar in the hope of landing a job.^[1] Callum studied at Lanchester Polytechnic's (now Coventry University) School of Transportation Design in Coventry, Aberdeen Art College and the Glasgow School of Art, where he graduated with a degree in Industrial Design. He subsequently graduated from the Royal College of Art in London with a post-graduate Masters degree in Vehicle Design.

Career[link]

Ford[link]

From 1979 to 1990 he worked at Ford working between Dunton, Japan, Italy and Australia, mainly working on ‘bits of cars, mostly steering wheels’.^[2] As well as working on bread-and-butter Fiestas and Mondeos, he contributed to image builders such as the RS200 and Escort RS Cosworth, the last of which he is especially proud of and with which he collaborated with fellow RCA graduate Peter Horbury.^[2] He was then appointed Design Manager responsible for the Ghia Design Studio in Turin and worked on the Via, Zig and Zag show car concepts.

TWR[link]

Nissan R390

After eleven years in a corporate environment, Callum left Ford in 1990 to join Peter Stevens and Tom Walkinshaw to form TWR Design. He said,

In 1991, he was appointed Chief Designer and General Manager of TWR Design. During this period he was partially responsible for designing the Aston Martin DB7, which is probably the design he is currently most famous for. He also designed the Aston Martin Vanquish, the V12-powered DB7 Vantage and Aston Martin's Project Vantage concept car as well as taking responsibility for a wide range of design programs for other TWR clients, including Volvo, Mazda and HSV. He was awarded the Jim Clark Memorial Award in 1995 in recognition of his styling work on the DB7. In 1998, he designed the Nissan R390.^[4]

Jaguar[link]

Jaguar XK

In 1999, Ian was appointed to succeed the late Geoff Lawson as Design Director at Jaguar, which had become a Ford Motor Company subsidiary in 1990. For a short stint, Callum directed design at both Jaguar and Aston Martin and it is claimed that he laid the foundations for the DB9 which was later finished by Henrik Fisker,^[5] though the extent of his contribution remains unclear. At Jaguar, since the Lawson designed 2001 X-Type and 2002 XJ were well advanced his influence was initially felt through a series of concepts, the 2001 R-Coupe and 2003 R-D6. The first production Jaguar to bear his influence was the 2004 facelift of the S-Type followed by the 2004 X-Type Estate, of which he was responsible for the tailgate design.

With the next generation of Jaguar models Callum succeeded in taking Jaguar away from the Lawson-era retroism, which produced the slow-selling X-Type, S-Type, and XJ towards a language that was more dynamic and modern. The first next-generation model which reflects this ethos was his first complete production Jaguar, the 2006 XK, which bears striking similarity to the Aston Martin DB9, which Callum describes as being a result of modern safety legislation.^[3] This new direction is continued with the 2008 XF as previewed by the concept C-XF, which Callum describes as the ‘next significant step forward’ in Jaguar's design direction,^[6] and the 2010 XJ.^[7] He was also responsible for the 2010 C-X75 concept car.^[8]

According to Callum, ‘Jaguars should be perceived as cool cars and cool cars attract interesting, edgy people.’^[9] The quality of Callum's work at Jaguar has been acknowledged by twice Le Mans 24 hours winner and fellow Dumfries native, Allan McNish.^[10]

Awards[link]

In 2006 he was honoured with a Royal Designer for Industry (RDI) award from the Royal Society of Arts and was joint recipient with his brother of the Jim Clark Memorial trophy, awarded annually to Scots who have made a major contribution to the world of motoring.^[11]

Callum won the British Auto Express inaugural Person of the Year Award in 2009 due to his work on the Jaguar XK, Jaguar XF and the Jaguar XJ.^[12]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Ian Callum Ford Biography
• Ian Callum interview in Pistonheads

The Jaguar is a fictional character, a comic book superheroine created by artist Laura Molina and published under her privately-owned Insurgent Comix imprint. The character, created in response to California's 1994 passage of proposition 187, made her first appearance in Cihualyaomiquiz, The Jaguar #1 (1996).^[1][2]

The Jaguar's secret identity is that of Linda Rivera, an East Los Angeles law student. Linda lives in an alternate timeline in which proposition 187 has transformed California in to a police state ruled by right-wing fundamendalist groups, which enact the removal of equal employment and affirmative action policies. People of color are consistently denied civil rights while racist hate groups are allowed to proliferate throughout the state. Tired of seeing her people persecuted, Rivera dons the mantle of Cihualyaomiquiz, a term from the Aztec language translated as "Woman ready to die in battle" and becomes a vigilante known as The Jaguar. She is assisted by local activists groups and makes use of her fighting ability, detective skills and knowledge of the law in her pursuit of social justice.

Publication history[link]

Molina first conceived The Jaguar as a response to California's proposition 187 which was designed to deny illegal immigrants social services, health care, and public education. The proposition would later pass with 58.8% of the vote before being overturned by the United States federal court.^[3] Molina viewed the proposition as a license to discriminate and a direct attack on human rights, as explained in her 1996 introduction to the character:

The Jaguar made her first published appearance in Cihualyaomiquiz, The Jaguar #1 written and illustrated by Laura Molina in 1996 with Tomás Benitez assisting in additional story editing and dialogue.^[4] The series is currently on hiatus, but Molina promises new installments in the near future.

Fictional character history[link]

Shortly after the passing of proposition 187, the rightwing backlash brings a new attack on civil rights, equal employment and affirminative action. Soon politicians are pushing for a national proposition 187. The right wing becomes corrupted by corporate media conglomerates and super rich while racist hate groups begin to grow more vocal and violent. The dignity of minority groups is assaulted on a daily basis with increasing violence against Chicano activist groups.

After witnessing the racist authority of California firsthand, Linda Rivera reclaims her heritage by reuniting with her native history. Adopting the mantle of Cihualyaomiquiz, dedicates her vigilante activities to Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec god of war. Every night she performs an ancient ritual in which copal is lit and calls upon her nahual (spirit guide) to transform into her alter ego as The Jaguar. During one of her first adventures, she is shown to have received important information from an unnamed activist group in order to steal some important legal documents. Along the way she encountered two neo-nazis in a back alley doing drugs. They attempted to overpower her, but she easily dispatches of the two of them. Before leaving she concludes the altercation by congratulating them for being so lucky, because "...after all, my ancestors used to eat their enemies."

Literary analysis[link]

Since the character's debut, The Jaguar has been interpreted and discussed in other forms. One notable example appears in Laura E. Pérez' Chicana Art: The Politics of Spiritual and Aesthetic Altarities,^[5] in which the comic book was compared to Art Spiegelman's Maus:

Notes[link]

• Pérez, Laura E. (2007). Chicana Art: The Politics of Spiritual and Aesthetic Altarities. ISBN 0-8223-3868-8.  ISBN 978-0-8223-3868-0
• Frederick Luis Aldama (2009): Your Brain on Latino Comics, University of Texas Press, SBN: 978-0-292-71973-6

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official site
• Official MySpace