The design of the F-Type is one of the most stunning aspects of the car. That and the wonderful exhaust noise.

A lot of people ask me if we had an E-Type in the studio while we were designing the F-Type, and the answer is no. We didn’t need one. It’s so entrenched in our memories. The thing about the E-Type is that it’s about a power train and two people, and it’s about pulling a skin tightly and elegantly around those components. Those things haven’t changed. Sports cars allow you to better express the form of a car – as far as I’m concerned, the taller it gets, the less expressive it is. The sports car is the art of the car industry

One or two details have been taken from the E-Type, such as
the shape of the rear lights. We did consider the oval front grille from the D-Type and E-Type. It’s a very beautiful shape, but we decided to make it more forceful, so we evolved what we’d been doing with the XF and the XJ, which was inspired by the original XJ.

The E-Type’s main contribution is the beauty of line, purity of surface and great proportions. We set out the proportions for the F-Type by knowing the engine, knowing the capacity we need for two people and some luggage, and wrapping it up as tightly as possible. We eliminated the overhang at the front, at least visually; made sure the cabin is sat in the right place relative to the wheels; made sure the overhang at the back is as exciting as we can make it. In other words, we made it as short as possible. And we work millimetre by millimetre at this stage before we design any lines, surfaces or details until we get those fundamental proportions that make the car visually exciting.

There are two laws you can’t change: the law of physics and the law of Brussels. There are so many elements we have to consider, so many safety regulations we have to adhere to. Pedestrian protection determined much of the final bonnet shape, for instance.

We still work with pencil and paper. There are two lines on this car that are very important. One starts off from an aerodynamic blade on the front splitter, sweeps up through the headlight, on through the front wing and door and then disappears. When a line on the car vanishes into the sheet metal like that, I like to describe that as the pencil coming off the paper. Part of the beauty of any line is that it has to contain the spontaneity of the original sketch. Of course, we go through any number of iterations on computers, but we always still start with an intuitive, sketched line.