Geoff Lawson (5 November 1944 – 24 June 1999) was a British car designer and was Design Director for Jaguar from 1989 until his death in June 1999. He was succeeded at Jaguar by

Ian Callum Ian Stuart Callum (born 30 July 1954) is a Scottish car designer who has worked for Ford, TWR, and Aston Martin. In 1999 he became the Director of Design for Jaguar Cars, later Jaguar Land Rover, a position he held until mid 2019. In 201 ...

Background

Lawson was born in Leicester, England in 1944. He studied Design at the

Leicester College of Art De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) is a public university in the city of Leicester, England. It was established in accordance with the Further and Higher Education Act in 1992 as a degree awarding body. The name De Montfort University was ta ...

before completing a master's degree in furniture design at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It o ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. A man of diverse hobbies and interests, he was interested in American cars, guns and shooting, model making, guitar playing and guitar design, mountain biking, abstract art and sculpture.

Career

General Motors

After graduating from the RCA, he joined the British subsidiary of General Motors,

Vauxhall Vauxhall ( ) is a district in South West London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. Vauxhall was part of Surrey until 1889 when the County of London was created. Named after a medieval manor, "Fox Hall", it became well known for ...

, as a designer, where he worked on various passenger cars and commercial vehicles. His work included many European and American projects and he progressed to Chief Designer level.

Jaguar

In 1984, he joined Jaguar as Director of Styling, where he arguably produced his best known and most influential work. He joined at a time when Jaguar was haemorrhaging money and its reputation of design and manufacturing excellence was seriously fading after decades of neglect, forcing a subsequent takeover by Ford in 1989. During his 15 years at Jaguar he was responsible for shaping the entire Jaguar line up, including the 1992 XJ220

supercar A supercar – also called exotic car – is a loosely defined description of street-legal, high-performance sports cars. Since the 2010s, the term hypercar has come into use for the highest performing supercars. Supercars commonly serve as t ...

, the 1995 XJ luxury saloon, the 1996 XK

grand tourer A grand tourer (GT) is a type of car that is designed for high speed and long-distance driving, due to a combination of performance and luxury attributes. The most common format is a Front-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout, front-engine, rear-wh ...

and the 1998 S-Type mid-size saloon. Before his death, he also supervised the styling of the 2001 X-Type compact saloon and the completely new aluminium-bodied 2004 XJ. Lawson played a significant role in the commercial revival of the company, which in the last decade went from basket case to record sales and a new-found reputation for good quality. This turnaround led to parent-company

Ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...

and Jaguar's then chairman,

Wolfgang Reitzle Hans Wolfgang Reitzle (born 7 March 1949 in Neu-Ulm) is a German business executive. Early life and education After leaving his school in Ulm, Reitzle continued his education at the Technical University of Munich where he studied mechanical ...

, to set ambitious sales targets in the belief that Jaguar could become a major luxury car manufacturer in the mould of

Audi Audi AG () is a German automotive manufacturer of luxury vehicles headquartered in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. As a subsidiary of its parent company, the Volkswagen Group, Audi produces vehicles in nine production facilities worldwide. Th ...

, BMW, and

Mercedes-Benz Mercedes-Benz (), commonly referred to as Mercedes and sometimes as Benz, is a German luxury and commercial vehicle automotive brand established in 1926. Mercedes-Benz AG (a Mercedes-Benz Group subsidiary established in 2019) is headquartere ...

Legacy

He won numerous awards for his designs at Jaguar and also led a major expansion of the company’s styling resources and facilities at their Whitley Engineering Centre. In June 2000, Jaguar opened the Geoff Lawson Studio in his memory in Whitley,

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed b ...

, which is responsible for producing future Jaguar concept cars. In addition, Jaguar endowed a scholarship at the RCA, 'The Geoff Lawson Jaguar Scholarship' in his honour to celebrate his achievements at Jaguar.

References

External links

* http://stileruvido.com/geoff-lawson-il-creatore-di-mostri/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Lawson, Geoff 1944 births 1999 deaths British automobile designers Alumni of the Royal College of Art