Jaguar Experience Visit & I-Pace

UPTIME Consultant at Castle Brom'

Jaguar goes Electric - Jaguar Experience Reception, Castle Bromwich, UK

This is another place like the Triumph visit of a couple of weeks ago that I have been trying to fit in, we had a free day so took the opportunity of visiting the Castle Bromwich facility over Birmingham.

They run these visits morning and afternoon and we opted for the PM visit that runs from 13.00 - 16.00, so three hours of touring three of the main production shops.

The site is so big that a tour bus transfers the group from one location to another, our group was only seven people so the tour was quite relaxed. Tea and coffee are available on arrival at reception before being taken through the all important safety video and putting on the hi-viz jackets.

The tour starts at the new £500 million assembly shop that builds three models of Jaguar to customers order. This was the main reason I wanted to visit to see the body assembly method with bonding and riveting of the aluminium shell, I had only been involved with traditional spot welded steel bodies before so the manufacturing method was new to me.
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The main difference from a reliability perspective is that there are no welding contaminants in the air so less to infect the machinery preventing damage by carbon.

The tour moved on through to see the XJ build shop which is where thousands of Spitfires were built during WW2, you could smell the history in this building, we also visited what was the on-site hospital that looked after the workers back then; I didn't realise Lancaster bombers were also built there as well.

The tour moved on to the final build assembly where bodies meet drive trains all the way around to final inspection and dispatch.

We finished back at the visitor centre for coffee, cake and a look around the new I-Pace vehicle.

​If you can free up half a day this is a great value visit for any engineer or car fan... recommended.