Jay Leno's Jaguar XJ Creation and Delivery

Jay Leno's Jaguar XJ Creation and Delivery Jay Leno: I'm Jay Leno and Jaguar is the car that got me interested in cars. I was fortune enough to be asked to introduce the new XJ in London and well, I ordered one and this is the story of my car from the birth, from the first day building it, to getting here in Los Angeles in my garage. Ken Close Well, the process starts in stamping which is where we take the roll of sheet of aluminum and turn into a panel that the customer would recognize like a bonnet or a door or roof for example. The components then flow through into what we call body construction where all those components are riveted together, like the airline industry. Jay Leno: I usually buy my car second handed, 10 to 15 years old. So, the color selection, the upholstery, it’s already been done for me. Well now, it’s up to me. I’ve gone through this here and I'm going to go with the pearl gray. I’ve always liked that sort of slate gray that understated. To me, that’s what Jaguar has always been about, an understated sort of elegance. That would be classic London tan into [Inaudible] well, that sounds pretty good for me. Ken Close: There’s a total workforce of about two and a half thousand people building cars here in Castle Bromwich. In total, about 600 of those would be involved in the production of Jay Leno’s XJ vehicle. Finally, it comes in the trim and final where obviously, the components that the customer sees most all fit to the vehicles, steering wheels, seats, carpets. You name it, roof lining. They’re all fit in trim and final. So, it’s quite a complex process with a number of different manufacturing processes and stages. But overall, a car from start to finish will typically take about 14 to 15 days to working straight through the system. Female: We’ve made with love, so please enjoy. See you! Jeremy Hart: Well, the guys at Jaguar have successfully done their job. They’ve made Jay Leno’s XJ. But now, the big journey begins all the way from here in Birmingham to California. Well, after 3,000 miles across the Atlantic, Jay Leno’s Jaguar has finally arrived here in the States. It's now a board of big orange truck to take it from here in Baltimore to Los Angeles to where Jay Leno has his garage and the guide has got to take the car across America, he is Dave Vasconi. Good to meet you Dave. Dave Vasconi: How are you doing? Jeremy Hart How many miles is it you’ve got to do? Dave Vasconi: About 25 hundred miles, about five days to get to Jay. Jeremy Hart: And that’s one of the great American road trips, isn’t it? Dave Vasconi: Yes, it is. We’re going to go through Indianapolis, St. Louis, Oklahoma City, Amarillo Texas, and that follow, 66 are on the way out to L. A. Jeremy Hart: Fantastic. Well, we’re going to get Dave a little camera. He’s going to do a diary for the first section of that driving. We’ll meet him again in the Wild West. Dave Vasconi: Stopped at a rest area here in Illinois right before St. Louis and by the inter-mile since yesterday afternoon. Yeah, we're in Tulsa Oklahoma on day three, raining like—for a white guy in front in me here. Well, there goes the Mercedes, they we’re surely looking at these new Jaguar’s. We're now in Amarillo Texas were they do everything bigger. We're at the Big Texan Steakhouse where they have a 72 ounce steak where if you can eat within an hour, it’s free. Jeremy Hart: Well, you join us on the road just outside Amarillo Texas. We’re in the part of America’s Wild West. And Dave Vasconi and his big orange truck carrying that ship to the Jaguar’s, it’s well on its way to Los Angeles California. Dave Vasconi: Arizona, here we come! It’s 108 degrees out. This is the dessert, it is hot out here. You have dust storms out here, it will sand, blast the paint right off your hood or your truck. Jeremy Hart: Well finally, we’ve made it to Los Angeles, California. Jay’s car has made it not quite to his home yet. It’s arrived here at Galpin Jaguar, one of the big dealers in L.A. and this is where the car is going to be prepared ready to hand over to Jay in just a few days time. Dave Vasconi: Easy does it. Here we go. Jay Leno: Well, it's everything I expected to be. It looks great. Usually, I don’t really order new cars at different specks. I’m the guy that usually buys my car second hand, so getting a brand new car is pretty exciting. See what I save on clothing? I put into the cars. I'm going to take it back to the shop now. We’ll take off a ride and we’ll see how it goes. Well, the car will never be newer than it is right now. It’s very exciting then you realize this is good as it’s going to look. You just wait for that first scratch. Hopefully, it will never come, but it always does. I'm a great fan of little English details like this. My favorite thing on the early roles in Bentley’s was these huge -- well, this sort of look like a spitfire to me. They’re quite clever, these Jaguar people. Everything that you touch has a nice feel, a nice touch to it. Zero to 60? I don’t know. It’s four seconds, something like that. I mean you got 470 horsepower at super charge. Those are supercar specks not that long ago—corners. Well, that’s pretty good. Not the cameraman over. That’s not bad with no squeal. Well, we’re just coming off the freeway now. We're going back to my garage and we’ll strip this thing down! The Jaguar collection is complete.