JAGUAR F-TYPE SVR CELEBRATES D-TYPE ANNIVERSARY

Wayne Burgess, Studio Director, Production and SVO vehicles, Design discusses the head‑turning graphics created for the five F‑TYPE SVR vehicles at this year’s Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance in Florida.

How did your team come up with idea for the design?

We knew a fleet of five F‑TYPE SVR vehicles was being driven to this year’s Amelia Island Concours where the legendary Jaguar D‑Type was one of the honored race cars. We also knew that 2017 marked the 60th anniversary of the D‑Type third consecutive victory at Le Mans ‑ they took five of the top six places in 1957 and finished first and second overall. We wanted to base the designs around the 60th anniversary theme.

How did the team come together and work up this design?

The way it works is that every week at Jaguar Design we set aside a full day for creative thinking on the projects we’re working on. We call it Design Thursday and it’s usually headed‑up by our Design Director Ian Callum. This project was on the agenda for Design Thursday so we bounced around ideas, looking at archive photos from the 1957 race, especially images of the race‑winning car from the Scottish Ecurie Ecosse team. In addition to the usual roundels on the doors and hood where the race numbers were attached, the Ecurie Ecosse car also featured a distinctive white nose band. That was the inspiration.

How did the team’s design evolve from the original race cars?

After we agreed the broad concept, I took the project back to my design team at Jaguar Special Vehicle Operations. The F‑TYPE SVR was created and is built by SVO, so it made sense. There the design was evolved. We took the nose band across the hood and continued it through the doors to give a sense of motion. In addition to inserting the ’60’ numbers to the roundels, we came up with this lovely graphic of a D‑Type in profile that we positioned in the roundel above the ’60’ on the doors.