Callum’s Young Guns

This summer will see Ian Callum celebrate his 70^th birthday. A prime age for anyone to sit back and reflect on their career, not least when it’s generously permeated by several of the most recognisable shapes in global car design.

Callum, of course, is different, and his design studio is now half a decade old and with bold new in-house projects reaching the public. Callum’s eponymous design director still picks up a pencil to sketch every now and then, but he’s also building a foundation of promising young designers eager to take the baton.

“Young people are crucial to a business such as Callum,” he tells Car Design News. “They bring energy, curiosity and ambition to our projects. There’s a brightness and a sense of novelty that forms ideas we might not otherwise have considered. It’s a real advantage for them to have such an open mind. I never stop learning, and every week the team will teach me something.”

In September 2023, a pair of university graduates joined Callum for paid year-long placements working alongside Motability as part of a clean-sheet look at an electric Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle (eWAV). It’s an open-minded mentality that helped set apart both Glasgow graduate Zoe Graham (23) and Coventry student Yikuan Zhang (25) from the almost 150 entrants of the ‘Design Hacks’ competition that propelled them through the doors at Callum’s Warwickshire studio.

“I have no experience designing cars, but I have experience in using engineering to solve problems,” Graham explains. “We’re getting a full spectrum of the business during this internship, down to material selections and financial aspects. We’re doing work that will be genuinely useful for the project and which might be used in the final product.”

The pair’s lavishly sketched ideas envisage a world where wheelchair users travel with more dignity – “they can feel a bit like luggage,” both concur – rethinking the user’s seating position to boost comfort and safety while easing the often-invasive nature of securing a wheelchair inside a moving vehicle. All with the added complication of slotting batteries beneath the floor, too.

“We get the chance to be involved in the full production process of the car,” smiles Zhang. “Interns are usually quite hard to involve in big decisions but here we’re given the chance.”

Both are thrilled to showcase their design proposals – and even more effusive about the trust clearly placed in them by the team to advance such a crucial project. “Our experience can act as a catalyst for young starters to reach a higher level of standard quicker,” says Callum, “which is something we want as they can become active channels of the business as it grows. We see our placements and full-time jobs as the start of a longer-term partnership for these young designers.”

A satisfying case study comes in the shape of Tom Ingell (23). He spent a 12-monthplacement in the Callum studio during his Automotive and Transport Design studies at Swansea university, a period which proved the perfect springboard for a full-time position.

“I got stuck into lots of different projects,” Ingell recalls. “I worked on at least 20 different things of note which represented a big change from university, where I might have three or four projects throughout the year. It was a big change of pace. I had a completely different workflow when I emerged from the placement and into my final year of study.”

Influences from his placement can be found in Callum’s motorised Martini Mixer and its lightweight sports seat for the exclusive Tuthill Porsche 911K. “I was very lucky to get my hands on those sorts of projects in my placement year,” he says, epitomising his director’s faith in youth. “I had no idea how much I would love product or interior design. My initial year at Callum opened my eyes to both.”

His relationship with Callum didn’t stop when he returned to the more sporadic routine of university, however. As Tom worked on his “dream final project” – a racing hypercar that unites the worlds of traditional and simulated motorsport – his strong affiliation with the team continued as they supported him through the most crucial leg of his studies.

“I wanted to combine sim racing with physical drivers in a future motorsport where you can control the car both remotely and in the cockpit,” he says as he explains the slick sketches and renders of his final project. “I was imagining an endurance race like Le Mans where you have driver swaps between physical and virtual competitors.”

Interior work during his Callum placement helped spur on a driving environment that’s mirrored perfectly between the real car and its sim rig, while more pragmatic considerations include the ease of maintenance for pit crews and the proposed use of hydrogen combustion for its V12 engine. “We needed a sustainability aspect to the project,” he adds, “so I thought sustainable fuels could support the interest of petrolheads who still want noise and smell, to bring them along into the future of the sport.

“I was supported by Callum throughout my project,” Ingell continues. “They always had the door open for me to review my progress and point me in the right direction. It felt like I’d never left. Everyone has been really helpful in the process despite it being my personal project. I was the only one on my course with this level of contact.”

Once Tom had graduated with first-class honours, he found himself back at Callum in a junior creative designer position – with his new full-time employer only too happy to provide a platform for the wider world to see his final-year project.

“I love that we get so much responsibility,” he concludes. “At a big company, you’re a small fish in a big sea. But there are no layers here – it’s a hands-on learning experience with ownership over your area of a project, making it so rewarding to see it out in the open.”

And to illustrate the emphasis on nurturing young talent, Callum has opted to promote from within when it came to appointing a new head of design. Aleck Jones joined in 2019 and had previously been the creative lead. Since joining Callum, the Coventry graduate has worked on numerous projects and most recently the Skye concept, revealed in November.

Never mind preparing to take the baton – this new generation is well and truly running with it.