Hi everyone. I've been thinking of trading my 05MY XKR for an F-Type and today I went on a tour of the factory.
Known as the Jaguar Experience I booked a tour for my wife and I.
We got there to find that we were the only ones that day so we had a private tour with our excellent guide Andy. I said I was thinking of buying an F-Type so we did the tour of the F-Type plant rather than the standard tour of the whole plant.
We saw the whole thing from start to finish, took about three hours.
The only parts actually made in the plant are the body components. Massive presses take the rolls of aluminium and press them into the various shapes for the car. All the other components are made elsewhere in the U.K. And shipped just in time to the plant.
The most striking thing was the slow pace of assembly and the many hand assembled jobs. They aim to produce 58 vehicles a day and although the total assembly time is about 26 hours an individual car takes over a week to go through due to paint cure times.
The robots pick up the various pressed components which are laid out by humans and form the underbody. The rivets are pressed through with no predrilled holes and also an adhesive is applied. Once the underbody has been assembled robots fit the inner upper interior frame. Then humans pick up the body panels and place them loosely onto the frame where the robots take over and correctly align and rivet them.
The body then goes to the paint shop.
Out of there it's pretty much like you'd expect the production line to be, fitting the various components but at quite a leisurely pace.
At every stage there are checks on quality and the impression is of a very carefully built car.
Every 25th pressed panel is inspected for errors so that they can't be repeated for long. Bad panels are scrapped and recycled back to the plant in Germany which supplies the aluminium.
The final stages include a thorough soaking, light alignment, suspension testing etc.
I'm going for a 3.0 S AWD Coupe Ammonite Grey with silver Tornado alloys, Performance Seats and various other bits.
Expensive? yes but I've had the XKR for 7 years and it's now 12 years old. I intend to keep this car and in 12 years time I'll be 80 if I make it, so what the hell !
I love my XKR and I'm only the second owner and it's done 98,000 miles but I want a modern car with all the toys...... I'm a retired Airline Captain. I remember that I loved flying the Lockheed L1011 TriStar, but when back in the late eighties I saw the new 747-400 with the glass cockpit I just want to play with that. Then along came the 777 with more toys and I had to fly that.
So goodbye beautiful X100 and hello to the F-Type.....small but perfectly formed.

 

Great story!
There is a video on the net about the making of the F-Type, it's a couple of years old now but with a bit of searching you should be able to find it.

 

Thank you for your account of the assembly!! I would SO love to see that!!! Get your F-type and enjoy the heck out of it!! FABULOUS vehicle!! It runs circles around the L1011!

 

here is the link to the video

 

Wow, thats the factory they're made in? Looks 1000x different than videos of Porsche or BMW factories. And not for the better...those German factories look clean enough you could eat off the floors!
Still cool to see where my came from though...

 

Thanks jbajor for the video. You can see what I mean by the leisurely pace!
Now only the F-Type is on that line and they've stopped using the protective padding on the bodywork.... causes more damage and workers are more careful.
At the beginning you can see fluid being used to check for blemishes in the panels.
Lots of humans, the impression is of a hand built car overseen by robots. Skynet anyone?

 

I think ammonite with silver wheels is a great combination. And I love the V6S power plant coupled to the 8-speed ZF transmission.

Congrats! You'll love it.

 

malbec,
A couple interesting notes. About 54% of the parts sourced for the F-Type come out of Germany. Based on your explanation that Jag sources the aluminum (aluminium on your side of the pond) from Germany, I did some research to ascertain the specific source. It appears that it comes from the Aleris Aluminium Rolling Mill in Koblenz for which my father was responsible for the design and commissioning back in the 1960's where I lived as a kid. It was a plant built in partnership with Kaiser Aluminum for which my father worked at least a decade.

Thanks for helping to connect some dots for me.

 

Wow. Six degrees of separation anyone? Malbec great post and congrats and enjoy! Thanks also for safely flying us all those years. Lance, very cool connections. The world is so small.

 

I took the tour and place is clean. Don't confuse sterile with clean. The building is historical WW2 wartime factory, and they used to make Spitfires there. Now they are making our F-types there.

When I went there, when they found out I'm F-type owner, they rolled out the red carpet. The only regret I have about the tour is that they don't allow photography inside.

 

Have just found this video of the assembly and testing. However the film is perverted for some reason and you have to use a mirror to view it !
Bizarre
Found the proper video, I think!

 

The dealership I was buying my FTYPE S through organised a factory tour for my family to see my car in production back in July. It was the hottest day of the year and the insides of the Castle Bromwich plant were practically glowing. It was a great tour, well worth taking.

 

Would love to do this a tour at some point!

Did you see anything to do with the SVO element? more specifically the SVR f-type ? :P

 

I did the Castle Bromwich tour a week after ordering mine - I went with my order sheets in my pocket. Great experience, the "body in white" (unpainted) is so nice. Almost changed to BRG after seeing it at the factory.
Nothing is as fun as flying an airplane, but piloting the F-Type is as close as it gets!

 

Malbec,

Great story. I to toured the factory back in August when I was over in England visiting my grandmother and family up in Crewe. I am currently an airline pilot as well. I flew the mighty 777 for 3 years. My favorite airplane. Sadly I'm on an Airbus now :-(, but at least i get to 'pilot' my F-Type every time I come home. I would have loved to been born a bit sooner to have flown some of the classic airliners, but it was a privilege to fly the 777 all over the world for 3 years.

Cheers and enjoy the F-Type!!

 

Hi there!
Well yes I'm looking forward to piloting the F-Type, just back from the dealers having placed my order and said goodbye to my XKR.
Both the XKR and the F-Type which I test drove gave me a thrill but nothing beats lining up and hitting those TOGA switches
I once hand flew one of our Concordes at Mach 2 that was fun but the cars give you the sense of speed....and we all "feel the need for speed"

 

Had the opportunity to fly on a Concorde once. The only sense of speed came from the LCD digital display mounted on the bulkhead at the front of the passenger cabin. Fastest plane I've ever piloted was my PA-28R-200. About as fast as the F-Type, but crappy acceleration.

 

Hoping to get some advice about possibly visiting the Castle Bromwich factory, I figured I would resurrect this thread versus opening a new one:

. folks that went on the tour, did you book/pay online in advance or is there a "secret" owner way to get a VIP tour. I don't mind paying but just want to make the most of the experience.

. I'm flying in to Heathrow and figured I would rent a car with my buddy and drive to Bromwich, take the tour, drive back to Heathrow to drop off car at rental agency and then take a cab into the city to our hotel.

. Is it easy to drive from LHR to the Jaguar facility? I've never driven on the "wrong" side of road (insert haters here ) -- but I figured this drive would be easy since it's mostly highway driving. True or false? If renting a car is a bad idea, how did others get out to Bromwich?

Any other advice is much appreciated.

 

You may also want to brush up on roundabouts aka traffic circles. You will find them wherever the US would probably put in a four way stop or lights. Also common under bridges at highway intersections.

I miss roundabouts so much....

 

Easy peasy driving on the "wrong " side of the road....except for first turn onto the road in the am...first turn out of a petrol station ( note: no gas stations in U.K.), restaurant etc. Early am is the worst.
Also, embarrassing to go to the left side door when you want to get in and drive.
When you have these little glitches under control....don't worry about roundabouts...save your terror for the DOUBLE roundabouts ! Truely intimidating .
Oh.. if you are offered an upgrade to a larger car...may make sense to beg off...sometimes smaller is better, 'specially when you are amongst hedge rows.
Envy your factory trip.
Alan