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A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 9 2 8 helped Jaguar and Ford establish a sol- id working relationship. Mark White, senior body engineering manager for Jaguar, found himself at the center of the debate in Whitley, the Jaguar prod- uct development center in Coventry, U.K. In Dearborn, Michigan, Jaguar’s body engineering liaison, Carl Dixon, was now the point man for the many questions that soon poured out of Whit- ley. In October 1997, White and a small focused Jaguar team flew to Dearborn for the first technology exchange with the P2000 team. At that time, work was already underway on the new XJ, codenamed X350 on the Jaguar product develop- ment plan or simply D2 within Ford. The original plan called for a convention- al steel sedan with an aluminum hood and front fenders. But some within the product planning community won- dered if the big sedan might not make a more suitable target for a first produc- tion AIV. By the end of October 1997, an alternate project labeled D2A was ex- ploring the possibility of an aluminum body X350. Again, Mark White spear- headed the study. With two AIV projects under study at Jaguar, the Ford AIV team flew to En- gland in November 1997 for plant visits and meetings with Jaguar’s manufac- turing specialists. Body engineers and product planners joined them, and three days later the team had defined the outlines of the study. Three months later, Richard Parry-Jones, Ford’s glob- al vice president of product develop- ment, put X350 on the cycle plan as an AIV. There would be no dual path with a steel version. The project was to be led by Jaguar from its Whitley Engineering Center in Coventry, supported by the AIV core team in Dearborn. But Jaguar was not the only Ford division looking into an AIV: The Clin- ton Administration’s interest in higher fuel efficiency provided a powerful mo- tivation for both the U.S. car and truck divisions. The challenge was to find a vehicle program that could afford the anticipated longer development cycle and the uncertainty of launching a com- plete set of aluminum stampings. In ad- dition, the chosen program had to be able to generate enough profits to ab- sorb the added investments for a new body shop and other new technology. Finally, after four years, both truck and car planners were simultaneously hom- ing in on potential candidates. The truck division saw one in the Ford Expedition. Launched as a deriv- ative of the F-150 pickup truck in 1996, the large SUV was proving to be an ex- traordinary sales success, with volumes sufficient to support its own platform. But this success was also its Achilles’ heel: By selling at more than twice its original planning volumes, the Expe- dition had unbalanced Ford’s carefully constructed strategy on corporate aver- age fuel economy (CAFE). A lightweight Expeditionwith improved fuel economy would help correct the issue. In January 1998, the next generation Ford Expedi- tion, codename U222, was included as a potential AIV in Ford’s product devel- opment plan. The car division’s planners had identified a new trend for more car-like utility vehicles, which they referred to as CrossTrainer vehicles (CTVs). Unlike the truck-based SUVs, they would fall under the responsibility of the car di- vision. The first CTV was a D-class ve- hicle, known as D219, and by March 1998, it was identified as an AIV. Four programs meant countless requests to satisfy the demands for information from the small team of AIV specialists. Even a company the size of Ford did not possess the resources to support four simultaneous metal substitution projects. A rationalization was in order and U222 was the first to revert to steel. By late March 1998, the X400 study was facing headwinds. The proposed 100,000 units per year production vol- umes raised serious concerns within manufacturing and materials purchas- ing in aluminum. In addition, it was fac- ing an unexpected design challenge: P2000 had been conceived as a re- search exercise, meant to be compared to an existing vehicle that conformed to existing safety standards. It was never intended to be the foundation of a new vehicle platform, which would have in- cluded provisions for upcoming stan- dards. The big news in both Europe and the U.S. was the development of the off- set frontal crash test that would require a revised front structure. That would add about three months of develop- ment time, plus time to tool and pro- duce new prototypes. The assembly plant product cycle was the final blow: X400 was slated to be built at the Halewood Body & As- sembly Plant in Merseyside, England, following the transfer of the plant to Jaguar when the Ford Escort was phased out. Adding provisions for the extended tooling development, an AIV X400 would leave the plant idle for more than a year, while a steel program would slip in seamlessly. Because the planners liked the idea of a small Jag- uar, they kept the program, but the project proceeded with steel, launch- ing as the X-Type two years ahead of the aluminum XJ. First-generation Honda Insight, produced for the 2000-2006 model years.