The search for the Joule, South Africa's only electric car, led to a conversation with the legendary designer of some of the world's most beautiful sports cars, Keith Helfet. The man from Calvinia who became Jaguar's top designer, it turned out, had also designed the Joule.

It's daunting sitting across a coffee table with the man who has designed some of the most beautiful Jaguars in the world and has been described as a visionary. But the problem doesn't last a minute because he's so unassuming, self-deprecating and funny.

"I signed up to do engineering at the University of Cape Town," he explains, "but I was a waste of space because of surfing and drinking.

"I loved machines but the degree was all mathematics and thermodynamics. I wanted to design cars. So I dropped out and built a car on the chassis of an old Triumph Spitfire using foam offcuts and 700 pounds of plaster of Paris. The engine didn't work. The general feeling was that I was a harmless lunatic. Then I went back and finished my degree.

"When I broke it up, my father was so upset. He said, 'All that work for nothing.' I said, 'That wasn't for nothing... I now know what I want to do - design cars."'

Don Pinnock: It's a big jump from there to Jaguar. What were the steps?

Keith Helfet: My degree was engineering but my passion was design, so I thought I'd do a postgraduate at...