His Royal Highness Prince Michael of Kent presents award to Jonathan Mabey (centre) and Bill McLundie from Jaguar Vehicle Safety

The all-new Jaguar XK was awarded the Engineering and Technology Award at the prestigious Prince Michael International Road Safety Awards in London yesterday (6th December).

The Prince Michael International Road Safety Awards recognise outstanding innovation or achievement and each year the judges make one Technology Award for road-based or vehicle based innovation that is considered to have significant merit. This year Jaguar has been recognised for its outstanding safety innovation in the new XK sports car. This is an all-new, industry-leading feature - the pedestrian deployable bonnet.

Jonathan Mabey and Bill McLundie, on behalf of the Jaguar XK Pedestrian Safety team, received the award at the Savoy Hotel from His Royal Highness Prince Michael of Kent.

"We are extremely proud to receive this award on behalf of the hardworking engineering team who were involved in the Jaguar Pyrotechnic Pedestrian Deployable Bonnet and the new XK," said Jonathan Mabey after receiving the award.

Jaguar is one of the first manufacturers to meet Phase One of new European safety legislation using an active deployable bonnet system. The new standards are designed to help mitigate the severity of injuries to pedestrians in the event of a collision with a car. Legislation in the European market requires manufacturers to commit to a two-phase introduction of a range of active and passive safety improvements on all new cars to improve the protection of pedestrians in the case of an accident.

In the unfortunate event of a pedestrian impact, the deployable bonnet on the new XK automatically 'pops' up a few inches, to increase space between the engine and the bonnet. This helps to isolate the pedestrian from hard points in the engine compartment - and takes place in less than a tenth of the time it takes to blink an eye. An advanced sensing system is mounted in the front bumper to help discriminate between a pedestrian collision and any other possible front-end collisions.

The all-new aluminium Jaguar XK will be launched early in 2006 and will allow Jaguar to emerge as a world leader in Lightweight Vehicle Technology while retaining its reputation for beautifully designed and crafted cars.


Published : 07/12/05 Author : Melanie Carter

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