1982 Jaguar Xj6 Sedan W/ Chv 350 Drivetrain 90 Point Restoration on 2040-cars

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Who picks car colors and materials? Designers like Hannah Custance

As automotive journalists, we're often asked "how did you get that job?" People usually didn't even know you could do such a thing. In this 7 Questions series, we're highlighting other jobs in the automotive industry that you might not have heard about before. What do they do, how'd they get to do it and other questions about their particular corner of the car world. Slowly but surely, the automotive landscape is becoming more colorful. Look beyond the unrelentingly conservative palette of white, black and gray most buyers opt for and you'll see the increased use of exterior trim types beyond the usual chrome. There's gloss black, of course, but also other metallic finishes like gold or copper. Those can be found inside, too, where there's also an increase in colorful leathers and trims, innovative fabrics, new wood types and finishes, and greater creativity in general. So where is this change coming from? The answer is designers like Hannah Custance, the color and materials design manager for Jaguar Land Rover. Her team's latest effort is also its magnum opus, the 2022 Range Rover. Although saddled with the expectations that comes with one of the automotive industry's classic nameplates, the all-new Range Rover is also a celebration of cutting edge manufacturing and fashion-forward materials selection. We sat down with Hannah at the L.A. Auto Show to find out more about color and materials designers, how she ended up in the industry, and advice she might have for young designers out there. It has been condensed for brevity. Autoblog: What does a color and materials design manager to do?Hannah Custance: I basically look after a team of designers who design finishes for every A surface on the car. So, that could be exterior finishes. It could be interior trim materials, soft materials, hard materials, chromes, metals, woods, ceramic – that's one of the new ones – anything you can kind of touch and see is color material design. Autoblog: How early in the design process does your team become involved.Hannah: Right at the very start. In fact, we look at materials that don't have a product assigned to them or a car assigned to them. So, it takes actually a very long time for us to get materials approved and fully validated. We have to find suppliers that are willing to work in automotive and our test standards are incredibly high, some of the highest in the industry.

Jaguar rolls out 2014 XJ updates

It may be an uphill battle with Mercedes-Benz having rolled out its all-new S-Class, but in an effort to entice more customers towards its flagship sedan, Jaguar has announced a series of enhancements for the XJ.
A number of upgrades aim to make the long-wheelbase model that much more accommodating, with new airline-style rear seats that recline, massage and optimize the headroom in the back. The rear suspension has also been recalibrated for comfort, and there's a new optional Meridian sound system with a Conversation Assist feature that uses microphones in the headliner to pick up occupants' voices and pipe them through the speakers to support the art of conversation in motion.
The engine range carries over unchanged, but each engine is now mated to an eight-speed automatic with an available stop/start system which Jaguar says takes less time to restart the engine than it takes for the driver to move his or her right foot from brake to gas. Full details in the press release below.

Check out Harry Metcalfe's 1978 Jaguar XJ 5.3 V12 Coupe

Jaguar may have built its business producing luxury sedans, but it also made some superb coupes over the years, from the XK120 through the E-Type, XJS and XJ220 to today's F-Type. The automaker has largely steered clear of turning its four-door models into two-doors, but there was a time when it did exactly that. And Harry Metcalfe, former editor of the British car magazine Evo, just happens to have one in his garage. Based on the Series II XJ sedan, the XJ Coupe was long and elegant – something along the lines of what you might see today in the form of the Mercedes S-Class Coupe, but smaller and built the better part of four decades ago. With only around 10,000 of them made, the pillar-less XJ-C was much rarer than the more iconic E-Type, and even fewer of them packed the 5.3-liter fuel-injected V12 engine. That makes the former Evo editor's ride a rather scarce one indeed, and well worth checking out in his latest video clip.