Jaguar's Next Generation XK Series

By Feann Torr - 7/04/2005

In 1996, at the Geneva Motor Show, British prestige car maker Jaguar took the wraps of its new XK8, a two-door slink mobile powered by an advanced V8 that wowed crowds and became the marque's fastest selling sports car to date.

Almost 10 years since the XK8's arrival, which also spawned the much-loved XKR (complete with supercharger), not a lot has a changed.

There was a mild makeover for the XK Series in early 2004, but the fundamental shape, and more importantly it's chassis and powertrain, had barely been tinkered with.

But all this is set to change.

Jaguar unleashed the Advanced Lightweight Coupe (ALC) at the Detroit Motor Show earlier in the year, and besides sharing overall proportions and some styling cues with the ageing XK Series, by the CEOs own admission this design study will shape the future look of Jaguars.

"The Advanced Lightweight Coupe represents the very essence of Jaguar, its heart and soul," said Joe Greenwell, the CEO of Jaguar Cars. "If you want to know what lies ahead for us, what direction we will take – this is Jaguar's answer."

If the ALC is even a hint of what lies ahead for the luxury car maker - and it most certainly is - the future will be a lot brighter than it is now for the Ford-owned automotive group.

Having sold it's F1 team and posting average sales in 2004, the company needs a boost, and an all-new XK would be just the ticket.

From a visual point of view, the ALC is a dead set stunner in my humble opinion. From any angle it exudes class, and just like the XK8 did in 1996, the ALC has an alluring overall body shape.

With shades of the 2005 Aston Martin Vantage and clear visual links to the current XK Series, Jaguar's newest show car was styled by Ian Callum, who also designed the Aston Martin DB7, and has worked for TWR and Ford in the past.

Sitting on massive 21-inch wheels shod with custom Pirelli tyres, the ALC is a very striking car; it's incredibly smooth, with clean surfaces that give it a distinctive, classy look. According to Callum, the design team strove to move away from "extraneous sculpture or unnecessary surfacing"

"Nothing is superfluous on this car," he stressed. "If you point at any part of the bodywork it is there for a specific reason or because it simply can't go any further in.

"We have produced a skin that is drawn taut across the chassis; one that covers the bare essentials underneath and nothing else – that's how a sports car body should be formed," said Callum.

Front and rear overhangs are quite short for a luxury sports car and give the ALC a powerful stance. Though the wheel arches aren't flared dramatically, the rear wheel arches bulge slightly, and above these are pronounced shoulder lines, or 'haunches' in Jaguar speak, that flow through the boot lid.

The front end is pure Jaguar XK, with a wide ovoid grille flanked by a pair of modern-looking headlight clusters that have evolved the look of the RD-6 concept car's.

Power lines in the ALC's bonnet break up the flat surface and convey a sense of power, while bold lateral air intakes sit below the headlights.

The polished gills behind the front wheels attract the eye, and though perhaps a little too flashy for my tastes, they are nevertheless functional, allowing hot air to escape the engine bay, in turn allowing the engine to run cooler and more efficiently.

"When Jaguar's revered aerodynamicist Malcolm Sayer created the E-type he didn't sculpt that car, instead he devised that remarkable shape from pure geometry – it is a series of ellipses," says Giles Taylor, Jaguar's Senior Design Manager.

"By designing the E-type that way he gave it a mechanical purity that we wanted to reflect in this car's face. That meant the grille had to be perfectly symmetrical in both a horizontal and vertical plane, and by doing that we have made a focal point from which every line can stream backwards," explained Taylor.

The new look front end, and in particular the grille, is of "prime importance" to the British company and as such will dictate how upcoming performance cars will be styled - the new XK Series in particular.

At the rear, centralised exhaust pipes are tolerable, and the new look brake light clusters have an air of Mercedes McLaren SLR to their outer bezels, and integrate effectively into the car's bold-but-measured image.

Jaguar's Advanced Lightweight Coupe is just as classy inside as it is out, and the interior sticks to the theme of less is more. "We all agreed that our interiors should be clean, simple and straightforward," says Ian Callum. "There is an honesty about the car's interior which I really like."

Taking a 2+2 configuration (two seats up front, two in the rear), the ALC is upholstered with tan leather, with aluminium inserts that act as "jewellery" according to Jaguar, and add a dash of sporting elegance to the cabin.

Up front in the cockpit, the driver faces old-school speedo and tachometers, and with minimal dials, buttons and gadgetry, it bucks the trend set by the German luxury marques, who favour in-depth interfaces, buttons galore and dials aplenty.

Jaguar hasn't been forthcoming with specifics on the ALC's engine and running gear, but the next generation XK Series that will closely resemble this show car will make use of a V8, that much is certain. And with an experienced crew of engineers at it's disposable, we expect big things from the new XK Series powerplants.

The company did mention a few performance benchmarks, stating that ALC would hit 96km/h in less than 5.0 seconds and would be capable of surpassing the 180mph mark (290km/h). Expect the new XK Series' V8 engine to displace around 4.0-litres, and forced induction is also likely to return in the next generation XKR.

"The Advanced Lightweight Coupe is the sort of Jaguar we want to build," said Joe Greenwell, the CEO at Jaguar Cars. "But that means we must do much more than just come up with a beautiful design, we must have the tools in place to turn that creative spark into something tangible. What people should recognise is that we have the people in place to allow this to happen. The company's engineering team is as strong as it has ever been and this new generation of engineers is all set to follow in the footsteps of great names from Jaguar's past.

As well as providing enough grunt to take on the likes of Porsche, Aston Martin, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, the ALC is called the Advanced Lightweight Coupe for good reason - it's very light.

Making use of an aluminium chassis, not unlike those used in the recent XJ models (reviewed here), the ALC's underpinnings are lighter than usual, but also much stiffer too, which will improve the new XK Series' cornering abilities quite substantially.

"The next generation of Jaguars will be remarkable drivers' cars," says Phil Hodgkinson, Director of Product Engineering. "Whether you want to relax behind the wheel on a long journey or head out simply for the pleasure of driving there will be no need to compromise. Our cars will be the perfect blend of performance and luxury."

Jaguar says that the Advanced Lightweight Coupe is more than just a show car - it represents the future of the company's product line-up. The upcoming XK Series won't be quite as gregarious as the ALC in question, but the shape, the proportions and other aspects, such as the aluminium chassis, will be very similar.

"This company has had many ground-breaking moments," said Joe Greenwell, Chairman and CEO of Jaguar Cars. "The XK120 was a ground-breaker and of course the E-type and XJ6 saloon in the 1960s helped to change the face of motoring. These were events in automotive design history that have stood the test of time and I would like to think that we will look back on the Advanced Lightweight Coupe as another of those moments in Jaguar's lineage."

Never before has a Jaguar concept car had so much importance placed upon it's powerful shoulders, and if the new XK Series adheres to the ALC's overall design philosophy, Greenwell will have his ground-breaking moment after all.