The upcoming Jaguar F-Pace has yet to be fully shown in production guise, but we already know a lot about it.
We know how it looks like, thanks to Jaguar’s willingness to show it as an almost production-ready concept; we know it’s capable of handling extreme temperatures and we know a little something about its chassis technology.
Nonetheless, the SUV still hides plenty of secrets, but lucky for us, Ian Callum – the man who penned it – shared some interesting details about its development process. Speaking to Top Gear magasine, the designer admitted that he’d never considered sketching a car such as the F-Pace:
“The F-Pace is the car I swore I’d never ever design. But now I’m delighted. It’s going to be tremendous. The performance crossovers will help fill out the range.”
Now, bear in mind that before coming to Jaguar, Callum designed the Aston Martin Vanquish, the DB7 and laid the foundation of the DB9 – some of the most beautiful automobiles in the world. Moreover, he contributed to rally icons, such as the Ford RS200 and Escort RS Cosworth. Impressed? We’re not done yet; he also designed the Nissan R390 and oversaw most of the new Jaguar line-up (since he’s the design boss).
So, as you can tell, Callum is a purist, the kind of designer who stays away from “abnormal” niches. Still, there’s no denying he brought the form in a place he considered worthy of the Jaguar name:
“I think the F-Pace will be our biggest seller. There’s a natural Britishness about crossovers. When we set about doing the F-Pace it was challenging. It wasn’t a natural place for me. We knew we had things to learn. It’s much more subtle than just a crossover with Jaguar cues on it. Some of our early attempts were generic, but then we moved into Jaguar mode.”
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