Supercar lessons for Jaguar

Jaguar’s stillborn C-X75 supercar program is yielding concrete benefits for the marque’s road-car customers… Or should that be carbon benefits!

The carbon ceramic matrix (CCM) brakes launched as an option on the latest F-TYPE R and F-TYPE S coupes are a direct result of the C-X75 program. And other technologies pioneered in the car will find their way into other future production models.

That’s the viewpoint of one of the chassis and drivetrain experts charged with the car-maker’s road car development program, Jaguar Technical Specialist Performance and Driving Characteristics, Tim Clark.

Speaking at last week’s launch of the F-TYPE Coupe in Spain, Clark told motoring.com.au that although it was canned before any final production versions were completed, the C-X75 effort had already yielded direct benefits for Jaguar customers.

“We’re still learning from C-X75,” Clark stated.

“We built five prototypes and we’re still using them. We’re not actually pursuing selling the car but it’s a testbed.”

Clark explained the CCM brakes in the F-TYPE and also used by the XKR-S GT race car program were direct results of the C-X75.

Although the race-spec brakes provide phenomenal and consistent stopping performance on a racetrack, CCM brakes can be noisy and need to be pre-conditioned (warm) to deliver their best. Both these factors make them problematic when used on road cars.

Unlike other manufacturers, Jaguar set the same noise and refinement and initial pedal feel and response standards on the ‘black’ brakes as its standard steel set-ups. The ability to match these standards was in part due to lessons learned in the C-X75 program.

But Clark says the benefits of the supercar program go further.

“Working with a really focussed team with a kind of Formula 1 mindset was really a learning experience. So as much as the [various] bits [of CX-75] go into production, it was more the way we went about developing [the car, that we learned from].

“That was part of the strategy. That those guys [on the C-X75 project] would get a sight of that and bring the knowledge and experience back to the [wider] team.”

The stillborn C-X75 supercar combined a 1.6-litre 380kW turbo petrol four-cylinder engine with electric motors to provide a 0-100km/h time of 2.8 seconds, a top speed of over 320km/h and fuel economy approaching micro-car levels.

Clark would not be drawn on direct examples of more C-X75 “bits” set to come to Jaguar road cars but spoke in general terms.

“We’re looking at a lot of hybrid stuff obviously… As everyone in this industry is… There are different options for hybrid set-ups and the C-X75 was an interesting journey along the way.

“One of the big things in hybrid technology is batteries and the C-X75’s battery was and still is cutting-edge. It’s one of the best power-dense batteries out there.”

However, Clark cautioned drawing too many parallels between the C-X75’s 10,500rpm four-pot and the new Ingenium range of engines Jaguar will debut in the XE.

“It [the C-X75 engine] was a standalone thing. Again some of the lessons learned [came] from running an extremely high specific-output engine…

“Nothing is going [from C-X75 directly] into the cycle plan but when you look at the industry trends of downsizing -- getting more and more power out [there are learnings available]…” he opined.

“For us as engineers it was an experience to go through to try [and hit the targets]. For the guys that delivered it, it was a real challenge to get that thing out the door, even though we didn’t sell it, in the timeframe we did,” he stated.