Jaguar Press Release




New Jaguar XJ wins EuroCarBody award

Organisers of the 11th international car body benchmark EuroCarBody conference flew into Birmingham on Wednesday 3rd March to present the award to the Jaguar team involved with the new XJ at the Castle Bromwich manufacturing facility.

In October a total of nine new car bodies from Europe and Asia were judged by nearly 400 international automotive experts from car body development, process planning and manufacturing. Each car body was scrutinized according to 23 benchmarking criteria.

At the heart of the all-new XJ’s construction is a next-generation application of Jaguar’s unique lightweight vehicle architecture. The XJ features an elaborately designed and manufactured car body dominated by various aluminium materials, such as aluminium sheet, aluminium extrusions and castings, offering an impressive low weight of just 324kg. The XJ won the "material concept" category, scoring 8.16 points out of a possible of 10, ahead of the overall winner, the Mercedes-Benz E-Class.

Paul Stanton, senior manager for Body in White at Castle Bromwich, received the award on behalf of Jaguar saying: "The Jaguar team at Castle Bromwich are at the cutting edge of aluminium technology. To maintain our technical excellence and to ensure Jaguar Land Rover continues its role as a centre of excellence for research and development, it is important to understand what trends are emerging, where science and engineering are pushing the boundaries and what issues competitors are focussing on.

"To advance the science behind the aluminium technology that will become increasingly important across the industry it is important to share ideas and thinking. In the automotive world and specifically in the field of body construction and metal forming, there is no other organisation that does as much as the Euro Car Body Conference to promote this sharing of ideas. I am therefore delighted to accept this special award on behalf of all the people who have worked tirelessly on the new XJ from design, production and manufacturing."

Mark White, Chief Technical Specialist said "The Euro Car Body Conference is an open and objective forum where experts vote on the latest automotive products and facilities. It is for these reasons that it is the most coveted award for automotive body structures world wide. With the XJ we are showing the world our way forward. The second generation of aluminium XJs shows the potential future of body design. A move away from the welded steel construction of historical body constructions into an era of ultra modern, high-tech, lightweight structures, typically 35 per cent lighter than steel competitors. In a world desperately trying to reduce the environmental impact of personal transportation, this has to be the way ahead."

Sounds like the award was won by the Mercedes E Class with the new XJ getting a consolation prize.

International Car Body Benchmark Conference, sets out to gather the globally most important network of expert car
body engineers in Bad Nauheim, Germany, to discuss newest developments, to examine the most recent series car bodies, and to take part in determining the winners of the highest accolade in car body engineering today - the EuroCarBody Awards 2009.

Mercedes 38.08 of the maximum 50 point
Jaguar 37.99 of the maximum 50 point, a mere 0.09

Seeing as this was judged in Germany that counts as a Home win for the mercedes. If judging were to take place in the UK Jaguar would obviously win by a margin well in excess of 0.09, therefore the XJ is really the Overall Winner.

Happy now

More interesting is that there is no mention of BMW but in fairness to that other German marque, Audi secured third place with the new R8 Spyder scoring 37.48

In fairness the XJ's nose is a bit dodgy...

Yes but the whole of that mercedes is dodgy........