Jaguar Land Rover - Becoming a class apart through aluminum utilization

Anyone, car enthusiast or not, can go gaga over the looks of a “Jag”. Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is the UK’s largest automotive manufacturing business. In 2008, 2 iconic brands - one of which made the world’s premier luxury sports saloon and sports car marques and the other manufactured the world’s leading premium all-wheel drive vehicles came together to become a formidable and a stellar car company after acquisition by Tata Motors.

Jaguar C type

The classy British car brand set shop in 1922 and has had many motorsports success under its belt since the ‘50s. The leaping feline is an iconic logo which has denoted just what the brand stands for – speed, power, and brilliance.

Although the engineering prowess of the car manufacturer was amazing, the company was bogged down by failures in the market and eventually got acquired by the Tata group. It was a bold move which paid rich dividends, thanks to innovating designs and technologies that they adopted.

JLR is one of the leading companies to use aluminum as their primary metal in manufacturing stunning yet powerful cars. They are one of the top advocates of aluminum use in cars to improve their fuel efficiency and better their performance.

Read : Aluminium in automobiles - towards a greener future

According to JLR, they have achieved a breakthrough reduction in weights of the high performance cars – upto 40%. More than 400 kilograms of weight have been reduced in individual cars through aluminum stamped panels, castings and extrusions integrated with the chassis. The Jaguar F-TYPE sports car and the Jaguar XJ saloon are dazzling examples.

Jaguar F Type Coupe

Range Rover

Jaguar XF

In our previous post, you read about what shaving off weight from a car an enable it to do.

For your reference, here's a pic which should prove our point. Jaguar and Audi were the pioneers in using aluminium bodies in their futuristic cars. The picture shows a 1985 pre-space-frame Audi aluminuim bodyshell prototype.

"Featherweight aluminium"

JLR has plans of increasing the aluminum consumption to 75% from the current 40% of the car body composition. The positive impact that it will have on the environment is great. It makes business sense as well. There are huge savings in costs too when transporting the cars to the customers by using lesser fuel.

Jaguar is currently developing an “all-new advanced aluminium monocoque vehicle architecture” which will result in the cars being more lightweight, agile and deliver a high strength to the car body. The result is the new Jaguar XE 2106! Aluminum is extremely suitable for molding and carving, thus, it will even better the opportunities for sleek design for making the cars more aerodynamic.

Jaguar is a strong proponent of using aluminium in its premium cars to combine the best form all worlds- design, performance, and safety. It has also declared that it will increase its recycled aluminum consumption to reduce its carbon footprints.

What do you think about the cars made by JLR? Is it going to be your next purchase?

Comments are welcome below!

*Text in different color leads to a different page.

*Sources:

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/jaguar-xes-recycled-aluminium-body-saves-500000-tons-pollution

http://www.aec.org/?page=lib_jaguarxe

http://www.jaguar.in/jaguar-range/xe/secret-behind-xe-powerful-performance.html

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