Engineering Innovation – within limits

The Jaguar C-X75, a ‘Jet powered’ concept sports car, has powered the imagination and possibly emotions of petrol headed car journalists in recent days. The ‘jet’ is in fact a micro gas turbine designed by a small UK company, Bladon, which extends the Jaguar’s range as is the case with a standard hybrid design.
Attempts have been made before to use gas turbine based hybrid technology, most notably by Volvo in the 1990s. It would appear that Bladon, driven on by the current demand for clean or green technologies, have made a significant improvement to the manufacturing process which makes the efficient design and production of micro gas turbines possible. This idea is, on many levels, a genuine innovation allowing the internal layout of the car to be redesigned to allow the option for a smaller motor to be fitted to power each wheel, and potentially further options, such as improving handling and styling.