Background
It probably helps if car designers are colourful characters, a bit eccentric with a vast hinterland of interests and passions to draw inspiration from. If this is true, the late Geoff Lawson was in the right job. During his time as Design Director at Jaguar, for example, he drove a lipstick-red Chevrolet Corvette between his home in Warwickshire and his studio at Jaguar's factory in Coventry. Lawson’s interests and hobbies included, in no particular order, guns and shooting, model making, American cars, guitar playing and design, abstract art and sculpture and mountain biking.
His body of work spoke for itself, too. His first complete Jaguar design was the incredible XJ220 of 1992, a sort of automotive Concord that became an immediate halo-projecting talisman for the ailing British Motor Industry. Next came the X300 version of the XJ saloon. Lawson took the cubist XJ40 inherited from Leyland and gave it an impressionist flourish that set the big saloon on the path to redemption.
For his next trick Lawson was charged with creating the long awaited successor to the XJS. As if this wasn’t already a task akin to sipping from a poisoned chalice with the Sword of Damocles hanging over you, there was significant baggage already surrounding the project. During the period leading up to the launch of the XK8 and prior to Lawson’s arrival, Jaguar endured the collapse of its BL parent, privatisation under Egan, and finally new owners in the shape of Ford in 1989. Oh, and it was Jaguar’s first new sports car for 21 years. One wonders if Egan spelt out these headwinds fully when interviewing Lawson for his role.
One of the first Ford axes to fall at Jaguar was the one that curtailed the further development of the seemingly rudderless XJ41 and 42 project, Jaguar’s own attempt at replacing their long-serving XJS. Ford still recognised the urgent need to replace the XJS, however, so Lawson got to work in late 1991. Ford were in a big hurry, too, so by utilising some underpinnings from the XJS, the XK8 was announced in March 1996, an almost unprecedentedly short development period for a, mostly, new car. Launched in Coupe and Convertible iterations the XK8 was well received from the start.
Most agreed, however, that the XK8 was good enough to deserve more power, so in 1998 the engine from the XJR, with a few tweaks, was pressed into coupe service to create the 370bhp XKR. Sadly, Lawson succumbed to a stroke in 1999 at the age of just 54. As such it was left to Lawson’s replacement, Ian Callum, to refresh the XK8/R concept for a second generation in 2006. The car, although bigger, was nearly 100 kgs lighter than its predecessor and would go on to serve until 2014.
