We'll be visiting London & Birmingham UK in Nov.
Looking at doing the Jaguar factory tour while in Birmingham: https://experience.jaguar.com/manufa...astle-bromwich

Anyone who has experienced the tour, pls give comments, & is it worth the $49 (Pounds) & 3 hour tour?
Thanks,

 

NavyBlue, I would definitely go. While I have not been to the Jaguar factory, I did tour a Volvo factory in 2004, with my bride who was exceptionally impressed, since she had never been in ANY factory. The tour as described seems like it would also make you special as a VIP, owning one of their products! Predict it will be a memorable highlight of your UK tour.

 

i live in the UK and have done the Jaguar Castle Bromwich factory tour. I would recommend it without hesitation. Group of about 8 of us. We wore headsets and the Guide had a radio mic so we could hear him. All questions were answered fully and I didn’t get the feeling it was sanitised at all. First half was on the XF body aluminium press and assembly. The 2nd half on the ftype assembly Line literally a few feet from the vehicles being built. Too many facts to remember everything. Only bit you don’t get to see is the paint shop as it’s a dust controlled area. Other than that we walked and observed the whole production line. I’ve been told the morning tour is better as the afternoon shift finishes early on some days and you may not see as much.


Kev

 

We went to both the Land Rover and Jaguar factory tours two years ago. Enjoyed them both. You will have a reservation, but call ahead to make sure that the line you are interested in is running that day. You may be able to reschedule if it is not running for some reason. We arrived to find out that the F-Type line was not running on our particular day. As an F-Type owner, we were very disappointed. They certainly treated us very well and did the very best they could under the circumstances. Upon our return to the States we were pleasantly surprised that they had quietly refunded our fees.

 

Went last September. Ours included the FType production line....Well worth it.
Was part of a tour organized out of Vancouver by the promoters or the All British Field Meet and Western Driver Magazine. Exceptional from beginning ...Beulieu Auto jumble, British Auto Museum, Goodwood...on and on till the end.

This year trying to make Sept in Italy with Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati factory tours....but who knows with the virus .
the All British Field Meet for 2020 has been postponed

 

You might get a sneak peek at the new XJ. That'd be worth the price of admission (I hope).

 

The tour is highly recommended.

The last time I did the factory tour the F Type was not quite in production and they were running some cars down the line to make sure everything was as it should be. Unfortunately they had suspended the build of the XK while that was happening so I missed out on seeing those but I did see them the previous time I was there.

I also did a tour of Browns Lane before that closed and that was very impressive. The guys working on the veneer and cutting out the leather covers for the seats were very skilled. I think that stuff is all brought in from other suppliers now though.

 

I'd be worried about a three hour tour, a three hour tour ...

Aside from that, I've been on a couple of factory tours and a not-quite-skunk-works facility tour and they were all worthwhile. I find it interesting to see how it all comes together.

 

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1jdwl3

Took the tour last May. Enjoyed it thoroughly. I happened to be the only American and only f-type owner on the tour. They do provide head phones so you can hear the tour guide. They were assembling F-Types when I was there. They use the same line for other models, so make sure you call ahead to see which models are being built on the days you are interested in touring. I took the afternoon tour, which went over on time, which was ok because there wasn't another tour behind us. Our guide was very informative and answered all our questions. No photos were allowed because of the future model year change. I'll take it again if I return to England.

 

Factory tours worth it. In college a friend went to Fremont Chevy plant(now Tesla) to watch his actial Camaro being built . It was a hoot even then.

 

Thanks for the great replies.
I'll def plan to book the tour while we're there later this year.
Hope they speak English there, I mean Texan English, since my son-in-law is from Birmingham UK & I can barely understand him in person, much less over headsets during the tour...lol

 

No-one understands the Brummie accent!
I love the way people speak of the "British accent" - we have so many dialects and of course Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish. Take your pick!

 

I went on the tour at Castle Bromwich before the Coronavirus emergency. The visit was a Christmas present from my daughter and her husband as they know how keen I am on Jaguars. I saw the F-type line, and then we were shown the main press shop for stamping out the aluminium panels. Well worth the money I'd say. Watching the robots stitch a car together is incredible. The F-type line is more interesting because the lower production levels mean the robots are much more multi-functional than the other lines. The only part you don't see is the paintshop for obvious reasons, but a short film is shown instead.

 

Seems like you've already made the decision after all the glowing reviews. I will add to those -- by far, this was one of the best tours ever. If you are obsessed with your F-type then this tour will only worsen that condition. I booked the more expensive VIP private tour so it was just me and a buddy on the tour. I would highly recommend the VIP tour if you can splurge on the cost. I say this because they were able to tailor the tour to my specific interests. They even made some mid-tour changes when aspects of the shop floor became available (ie we got into the paint shop unexpectedly). We also got to walk through part of the actual build 'catwalk / cage' area -- which I doubt the regular folks would be allowed to do (??).

For me the highlight of the tour was chatting with the guide -- he was a retired JLR worker -- he had worked for Jaguar for 35 years. It was fascinating to chat with him throughout the tour about how different things were during the various ownership changes of JLR. While I thought that the Ford years would be his worst -- he actually had some good things to say about Ford in terms of giving them more discipline in mass production and some of the technology advances they pursued. The major downside of those years -- from his perspective -- is that they felt like they lost their soul. They were skeptical when Tata bought them but he felt that Tata gave them the independence they needed to transform back into a custom / tailored luxury brand again.

Bottom line - go on the tour .. whether VIP or the basic.

 

Would love to go on one of these factory tours some time, my main question would be why the panels don't line up on most cars, was watching a program on making a Bentley and at quality control it came down to a millimetres, I think on an F-type it comes down to fingers width

 

Thin Bentley fingers come at an eyewatering price, though!

 

But there eye watering pieces of workmanship