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Jaguar F-Type engineers obsession with balance for new sportster

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1 October 2012

Weight distribution can make heads spin in the wrong hands, and thereby hangs a tale in the Paris show headline Jaguar F-Type sports car.

Jaguar engineers became obsessive with saving weight and aiming for a near perfect weight distribution for their latest two-seater slingshot, so much that they matched a new aluminium front subframe with the desire to keep the back end as well balanced as possible.

This meant they took the opportunity to move the 5 litres capacity washer bottle from the usual engine compartment to immediately behind the rear bumper, filling it through a point inside the boot.

Ian Hoban, vehicle line director for Jaguar, explained, ” We wanted to get the weight distribution as close to 50:50 as we could to get the handling balance right and after shaving 5kg off the front subframe by making it in aluminium instead of steel as usual, we also found we could lighten the front still further by moving the washer bottle to the back of the car so we mounted it just behind the rear bumper.”

He said that in its unladen state the new Jaguar F-Type has a balance of 52:48 and with driver and passenger aboard it then moves closer to the desired balance, thanks to the rear washer bottle location.

 

Look at what’s happening with the latest business cars in our news and road tests and take our company car advice if you want to keep ahead of the game.

 

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Ralph Morton

Ralph Morton

Ralph Morton is an award-winning journalist and the founder of Business Car Manager (now renamed Business Motoring). Ralph writes extensively about the car and van leasing industry as well as wider fleet and company car issues. A former editor of What Car?, Ralph is a vastly experienced writer and editor and has been writing about the automotive sector for over 35 years.

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