[ THE INSIDERS ]
To design cars, you don’t have to be passionate about the marque you are designing for. It can be as easy as following your desire and finding inspiration
Julian Thomson’s design career spans Ford, Lotus, VW, Jaguar and GM, while in the background he’s owned a string of interesting cars, from an Alfasud Ti to a Dino 246
As long as I can remember, I dreamt of being a car designer. Where this desire came from, I can’t tell you. I didn’t come from a family of car enthusiasts or designers. Family transport was a succession of Bedford vans and various Minis. And after much badgering from me, the most exotic car we ever had was an Austin 1300GT. Still the passion was there, an itch that wouldn’t go away.
Other car designers I know will tell great romantic stories of how they were destined to design Porsches, Bentleys or Corvettes after a life-changing moment from their childhood. How they first saw a Ferrari 250GTO or similar on Guildford High Street, and how they vowed to be one day sketching the next one in Modena or Stuttgart.
For me it was a bit different. To be honest I was so single-minded I would have been happy designing Yugos.
So, when the day came where I found myself in charge of Jaguar Design, the questions came thick and fast, ‘Surely your path there was a childhood dream?’ ‘Jaguar must be part of your DNA?’ Clutching at straws, I recounted how my childhood neighbour had a chocolate brown E-type and once took me to school in it, and later my granny bought one of the very first original XJ6s, but nothing exactly life-pivotal.
To prove my loyalty and love for the brand, the other thing I could do was to actually have an iconic Jaguar in my garage, so I began to research the ups and downs of buying an XK120, my most favourite classic.
‘I was so single-minded on being a car designer, I would have been happy designing Yugos’
At this point I should explain that my mother is from Thailand and this is something that makes me extremely proud. However, I’m not overstating it when I say that Thailand hasn’t exactly contributed hugely to the automobile landscape. There are my own forays into automotive scribbling, and of course Alex Albon, but Thailand’s most famous automotive export has to be pre-war racing driver, Prince Bira.
Bira raced internationally at the highest level, equivalent to Formula One both before and after the war, predominantly in ERAs but also in Maseratis. He also happens to be a distant great uncle of mine. But digging deeper into my Jaguar research, in a 1949 issue of Motor Sport, I was intrigued by a photo of Bira at the wheel of – not a Maserati – but a Jaguar XK120.
Through his prominent racing career, Bira’s team was managed by Lofty England. Lofty needs no introduction; later he would lead Jaguar Racing’s victories at Le Mans and become Jaguar’s chairman. It turns out that soon after the launch of the XK120, Prince Bira and Lofty England were brought together again to help compete in Jaguar’s first-ever race. William Lyons thought that the 1949 production car race at Silverstone would be a brilliant real-world test of the company’s new car, and a trio of ‘patriotically coloured’ 120s were entered, driven by Leslie Johnson, Peter Walker and Bira.
From the off, Prince Bira led the race but was forced to retire after suffering a punctured tyre. The other two cars went on to finish first and second, the first of many Jaguar racing victories. I hung that picture from Silverstone in 1949 proudly behind my desk at Jaguar Design.
My great uncle leading Jaguar’s first ever motor race – personal history stories don’t get any better, and perhaps in some small part that contributed to my DNA and my passion for car design. Now all I had to do was to buy a Jaguar XK120. That’s a story for another day…
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