Jaguar introduced the all-new, largely aluminum XF sedan today, and used the occasion to perform a slightly perplexing feat: The company had a stuntman drive an XF across the waters of London’s Canary Wharf, precariously perched on a pair of cables barely thicker than an inch. Apparently the stunt broke a world record.
Jaguar claims that the feat, which had the car suspended as much as 59 feet above the water’s surface, was the world’s longest high-wire drive, clocking in at just over 787 feet from end to end. Stunt driver Jim Dowdall, a veteran of the Indiana Jones, Bourne, and Bond movie franchises, was at the wheel, and while the Jag rode the carbon-fiber cables on specially grooved wheels, we imagine it was still a white-knuckle voyage.
Also, we know what you’re thinking: That giant Jaguar counterweight slung beneath the XF looks like it’s been photoshopped. It’s not—it’s just painted to look like a reflective surface, which it isn’t. It’s totally there, as you can see in Jaguar’s video of the stunt. Fast forward to 3:45 in the video below if you’re not interested in setup and you just want to see the high-wire drive itself.
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Jaguar says the feat was designed to highlight how lightweight the new XF is, having trimmed a claimed 132 pounds from the rear-wheel-drive model and a staggering 256 pounds from the AWD variant, thanks to an aluminum-intensive architecture. The car’s curb weight may not have been the first thing on our minds watching the car drive along the cables, but we’ll never criticize a company for cutting pounds.
from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/1FC80xJ
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