Working with Karmann
EVEN BY the early Eighties the German coachbuilder, Karmann, was still only known for the Ghia, the pretty coupe and convertible that was built at its Osnabrück plant on behalf of Volkswagen between 1955 and 1974.
But when Jaguar worked with the company as a supplier we discovered there was more to it than that. It was also an expert in designing convertibles and still a producer of cars for several manufacturers including Ford, Mercedes-Benz and again Volkswagen, continuing do so until the company went bankrupt in 2010.
Since Browns Lane didn’t have capacity or the knowledge, Karmann was contracted to do the body engineering for the first XJ41 prototypes plus the body tooling for the eventual production car. And so for several years, I spent a lot of time at Osnabrück with its engineers.
The XJ41 would be Jaguar’s first car to be designed and built using computer aided design and manufacturing (CAD/ CAM) but Karmann initially said it didn’t have the hardware or expertise for this. But the company wasn’t as busy as it had been in the past and so needed the work. It also realised this might well be the future and ought to go computerised.
This was an enormous step for what was a relatively small company since not only did it need to invest in several computers and milling machines but full size printers. But Karmann eventually became computer literate and an early leader in CAD/CAM technology.
It’s for this reason why we went to Karmann in the first place and didn’t use more local companies Jaguar had worked with in the past including Abbey Panels and Park Sheet Metal.
THEY SOLVED ALL THE PROBLEMS CAUSED BY THE XJ41’S MANY INNOVATIONS
Yet Karmann’s designers often had this, “We do things this way” attitude and I had to deal with a lot of design that’s controlled by what’s called “engineering feasibility”. Their engineers would often inhale through clenched teeth and say they couldn’t do this or that and I’d have to argue the case that something was important. But be
