Jaguar calls it the Impossible Panel. The 10-foot sheet of aluminum pressed into forming the rear quarter section of the Type 01 should have been impossible to make. However, it was key to delivering the proportions and look the automaker wanted, so the company made it happen.
But why is this piece of formed aluminum so impossible to make?
One Panel, The Key To A Completed Car
One single piece of aluminum goes from the back bumper of the Jaguar Type 01, extends to form the wheel arch and rear fender, and then arcs up to become the C-Pillar and the roofline of the car. It’s a manufacturing masterpiece: a panel 10 feet long and less than one millimeter thick that is key to the car’s design.
Making it wasn’t easy, which is why Jaguar calls it the Impossible Panel. Jaguar says it is impossible because traditional wisdom holds that a panel can only be pressed in three places. This one had to be pressed in five, making “gigacasting” look like a walk in the park.
The process to make it happen took 22 weeks. More than 1,500 hours went into making and perfecting the tooling, with the end result a panel that needed more than 2,750 tons of force to squeeze out. Designer Alexey Andreev explains in a new clip posted to the company’s Instagram account, embedded above.
Why would Jaguar design such a complicated panel? It’s about making the car “first and foremost a Jaguar,” Andreev said. “It’s about drama, it’s about excitement, about giving you that visually arresting feeling.”
Without it, Jaguar couldn’t have created key parts of the car’s look. Andreev highlights the surfacing moment where the line of the roof meets the shoulder. The designer describes it as looking like the flick of a pen, and focuses on how it starts sharp but then softens as it moves to the edge of the car as well as how the sharp creases of the shoulder make the car look even wider at the rear.
Is This Going To Be A Huge Problem Later?
Jaguar Type 01Jaguar
If you’re looking at that giant panel, you’re probably thinking about the $42,000 Rivian side panel repair resulting from a minor crash a few years back. Rivian was a new company, new to the auto industry, and at that time it did not offer repair panels.
Today it does, which brings repair costs down closer to those of other models. Jaguar has the benefit of already building cars for 91 years, and building all-aluminum cars for more than 20. It knows what it’s doing. Aluminum is nothing new for companies that have spent generations building cars, and the automaker assured journalists that it has planned for this.
CarBuzz Insight – Why This Matters:
Jaguar set out from the beginning to make something like nothing else on the market today. The proportions of the car that came out of the process are why it went with electric over gas, so making something like this Impossible Panel is a natural progression. It fits perfectly with the “luxury gap” as Jaguar describes the distance between the front door and the wheel arch.
Jag is spending big money to make this a serious luxury car, and that shows up with details like this, whether you see it immediately or not. It’s a sign that Jaguar was not willing to compromise on the new car, which bodes well for the real thing on the road.
