Ian Callum


1954 -

Car designer. Born in Dumfries and educated at Dumfries Academy, Callum is the elder brother of another successful car designer, Moray Callum (b. 1958). He became interested in car design as a youth, wrote to Jaguar asking for help and was a runner-up in a Vauxhall Craftsmen Guild competition at the age of 14. He went on to study transportation design in Coventry and industrial design at Glasgow School of Art. He worked for Ford from 1979-90, managing their Ghia Design Studio in Turin, including his brother who was employed there at the time. He was a founder of TWR Design in 1990, most notably taking a leading role in the design of the Aston Martin DB7 and Vanquish, but also working on models for Nissan and Volvo. In 1999, he joined Jaguar as Director of Design. Initially he was responsible for a series of concept cars, but from 2004 his radically different styling became obvious across the Jaguar range. Again, he was to work with his brother at Jaguar, which was then a subsidiary of Ford.

His work was acknowledged with a Royal Designer for Industry Award from the Royal Society of Arts (2006) and being named Man of the Year by Top Gear magazine in 2012. A clay model of his all-electric I-PACE forms an exhibit within the V&A Dundee museum, celebrating Scottish design.

Callum was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2018 and was awarded a CBE the following year.


Use the tabs on the right of this page to see other parts of this entry arrow


By using our site you agree to accept cookies, which help us serve you better