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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 | N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 9 2 7 application trial was supported by a team of manufacturing engineers from Ford, Alcan, and Quaker Chemicals. Earlier that day, at the Frankfurt Mo- tor Show, Jaguar announced that the next-generation XJ sedan would feature an aluminum body and that the compa- ny was building a new stamping plant to support it. The date was September 11, 2001. The events in New York quick- ly overshadowed the announcement, and the lubricant team had to remain in Canada until the border reopened three days later. The first tools started arriving at Jaguar’s Castle Bromwich plant in 2002, and by early summer, the aluminum manufacturing implementation team disbanded with the focus shifting to support the launch. At that stage, sever- al Ford engineers were serving foreign service assignments with Jaguar. Coor- dination builds soon began and manu- facturing started to tune its processes to achieve productivity and fit-and-fin- ish targets. JAGUAR X350 DEBUT Jaguar officially introduced X350 as the 2004 Jaguar XJ on September 26, 2002, at the Paris Motor Show, with the U.K. introduction following a month lat- er at the Birmingham Show. Sales be- gan in the U.K. in April 2003 and within months the car was shipping to world- wide markets. As expected, the Jaguar XJ was the lightest vehicle in its class, achieving superb driving dynamics without sacrificing comfort or fuel ef- ficiency. As X350 entered production, work was already underway on X150, the next generation XK. Jaguar was now part of Ford’s Premium Auto Group, which included Land Rover and Volvo, and work soon started on a new shared lightweight rear-wheel drive platform. It had taken 24 long years, but David Kewley’s vision for a lightweight body structure was finally in series produc- tion. Most importantly to Ford Motor Company, it heralded a scalable tech- nology, which could now be studied and perfected within a real production framework. About three months after Job1, the entire aluminum technology team met in Castle Bromwich to review their accomplishment. The self-congratula- tion lasted all of one afternoon, after which they devoted the rest of the week to defining lessons learned and gap analysis. The first AIV was in production, but serious developments were still needed to scale it to high-volume series production. For the next several years, X350, X150, and Castle Bromwich would become an important stop for “up and coming” Ford manufacturing and prod- uct development managers. Impor- tantly, its very existence reminded the entire corporation that an AIV was not only possible, but desirable. CONSOLIDATION CONTINUES The aluminum industry’s consol- idation continued: In 2002, Hydro had acquired VAW Aluminium AG, which in- cluded the other half of Alunorf’s out- put and Grevenbroich, a capable rolling facility that would later enter ABS pro- duction. Alcan finally acquired Pechin- ey in November 2003, but at a cost: To satisfy the regulators, it had to spin off the rolled products entity that became Novelis on January 1, 2005. This in- cluded Alusuisse’s Sierre plant and Al- can’s historical rolling locations in the U.S., Canada, and Germany. Novelis’ half of Alunorf, the largest aluminum rolling mill in the world, and the cold rolling/finishing capabilities at Nach- terstedt, would be strategically import- ant to Novelis’ ABS production. This left Novelis in an enviable ABS produc- tion position with rolling capacity and heat treatment lines in Switzerland, Germany, and North America. Alcan had kept its primary metal operations, extrusions, and Pechiney’s rolling fa- cility at Neuf-Brisach, a demonstrated producer of ABS. But its primary alumi- num production was too much for the Australian mining giant Rio Tinto to re- sist and they gobbled up Alcan at a huge cost to obtain the smelting assets. The rolling mill and extrusion business be- came Alcan Engineered Products. Aleris was born in 2004 through the merger of Commonwealth Alumi- num and IMCO Recycling, creating a North American company with a capa- ble rolling mill in Lewisport, Kentucky, that had belonged to Kaiser. Aleris be- came an international company when it acquired the aluminum assets of the Corus group in 2006, thus securing a position in the European ABS market. Corus installed a new dedicated ABS heat treat line in Duffel during 2004- 2006 and began production of a whole line of 6016-based ABS products. FORD AFTER X350 When series production started in 2003, the U.K. and U.S. administrations were preparing for the second Iraq War. The fall of Saddam Hussein and the al- lied occupation resulted in a new era of political uncertainty in the Middle East, triggering a rapid increase in oil prices. By 2005, U.S. gas prices exceed- ed $2/gallon on a continuing upward trajectory. A year later, the price sur- passed $2.50/gallon and was still ris- ing. Jac Nasser had envisioned a golden goose powered by trucks and SUVs, but Jaguar XJ, introduced in September 2002 at the Paris Motor Show.