Industry ace is Ford's new design director

Bryce G. Hoffman / The Detroit News

Dearborn -- If there is a dynamic duo in automotive design today, it has to be Ian and Moray Callum.

The two brothers from an obscure Scottish town have used their design talents to transform fading brands into design icons. Older brother Ian gets the credit for Jaguar, while younger brother Moray has been lauded for the perhaps greater achievement of turning Mazda into a design leader.

Now, Moray Callum faces what some see as an even bigger challenge as Ford Motor Co.'s new design director for the Americas.

Last month, he replaced Peter Horbury, who is returning to his previous position as head of design for Volvo. Under Horbury's leadership, Ford broke what had become a string of lackluster, me-too designs and started building vehicles like the Ford Flex and Lincoln MKS that began turning heads again.

"The mission now is to keep that excitement going," Callum said, describing his task as more evolutionary than revolutionary. "The challenge is keeping it at the level we're at and, if anything, taking that up a notch."

He will have to do that in the face of harsh new realities that have left Ford with fewer designers and tighter budgets. Some designers bristle at the fiscal realities of their work, but Callum enjoys the challenge of designing vehicles for profit as well as curb appeal. And while he has fewer designers and tighter budgets, he is encouraged by the company's new appreciation for the work he and his team are doing.

"There's a lot less hurdles in our way these days," Callum said. "There's a great agreement in the company on the importance of design and the importance of exciting products. There used to be much greater challenges just convincing people that was important."

Brother Ian always wanted to design automobiles. Moray's epiphany did not come until he was an architecture student at Napier University in Edinburgh, trying to calculate the diameter of "soil pipes" for an office building.

"I realized that architecture was not the glamorous thing I thought it would be," he said.

So he shifted gears and earned a master's degree in transportation design from the Royal College of Art in London.

Product analyst Jim Hall of 2953 Analytics LLP says Callum is "a very good choice" to lead the evolution of Ford's design in the Americas.

"He's been in the States before," Hall said. "He genuinely understands what makes American cars American cars."

But Hall says Callum faces big challenges as the company tries to adopt a common look for its vehicles worldwide.

Ford has traditionally designed different cars for different markets. The Ford Focus that is sold in North America today is completely different than the one that is sold in Europe.

As part of CEO Alan Mulally's push to create "One Ford," these regional models are being replaced with global products that will be largely identical, save for a few tweaks in deference to local preferences.

Hall believes the strategy's success is far from a given.

"Americans want different cars than Europeans," he said. "Callum is going to have to do a lot of design optimization for the American market."

Callum says he is up to the task. His experience with Mazda gave him an appreciation about the way consumer expectations differ around the world.

He joined Ford in 1995, working on key products for North America, including the 2000 Taurus, and the 1998 Ford Super Duty pickup. He became global design director for Mazda in 2001 and took over design for Ford, Lincoln and Mercury cars and crossovers in 2006.

Callum led the redesign of the 2010 Ford Taurus, the car that is supposed to bridge the gap between the company's global cars and vehicles designed specifically for the American market -- such as the Mustang and F-150 pickup.

The new Taurus has already been well-received by critics.

Asked what his signature on the car is, Callum demurred.

"I don't want there to be a 'me' signature," he said. "I want each product to have its own signature. I'd like the car to be king."

bhoffman@detnews.com (313) 222-2443