Aluminum and the XJ

Its construction and the techniques used to build it dominate the sixth-generation Jaguar sedan's technology story.

David Scholes, Chief Program Engineer for Jaguar's new XJ, has great faith in aluminum as the major emerging material for car construction: “I can see within 25 years more aluminum cars being produced than steel. We need to find increasingly efficient ways of producing cars, and I believe that if predictions about fuel and taxation trends come to fruition, aluminum could be used very widely, including for the high-volume end of the market.”

Jaguar has just joined Audi (A8 and A2, the former a direct rival of the XJ) as a major manufacturer of aluminum cars, with production of the new XJ (code-named X350) now ramping up at its Castle Bromwich, Birmingham, UK plant. The car, the sixth-generation XJ sedan since the first XJ6 appeared in September 1968, will be produced in V6, V8, and supercharged V8 forms and incorporate several novel systems, but it is its construction and the techniques used to build it that dominate the technology story.