History of Jaguar Cars
Jaguar's beginnings started back in 1922 under the ownership of two friends William Lyons and William Walmsley. The company, originally based in Blackpool, started life as Swallow Side Cars, building motorcycle sidecars. There were a couple of name changes until finally becoming ‘Swallow Coachbuilding Company’ in 1927.
Expansion saw them outgrow various properties in Blackpool and 1928 they moved the operation to a first world war munitions factory in Coventry and with business still booming they had their first-ever stand at the London Motor Show in 1929.
Using chassis’ s from Austin and Standard they produced open top and saloon cars that proved popular following the depression of the twenties.1929 William Lyons also developed and built his first sports car known as the SS (Standard swallow) as a boat tail roadster.
1945 saw the name change to Jaguar Cars as they didn’t want the ‘SS’ brand to be associated with any similar foreign name. Following the brand name change, Jaguar developed the XK120, XK140, XK150 followed by one of the most desired Jaguars ever; the E-Type. The pre-production E-Type only just got to Geneva in time as it was driven to the launch of the car at the Geneva motor show from Coventry leaving just 20 minutes to get the car prepared for the launch. The launch was so successful that William Lyons ordered that a second car, an open-top E Type was to be driven overnight to Geneva as a second car for test drives. The now infamous overnight journey was done by Jaguar test driver Norman Dewis. Enzo Ferrari himself commented at the launch that the E-Type was the most beautiful car he had seen. Looking at the cars Ferrari himself produced, that was high praise.
Following the success of the E Type, the XJ6 was launched which was an upmarket 4 door saloon car with various reincarnations that was in production from 1968 to 2007. Although very different, the ancestors of the series 1 XJ can still be seen in the final models of the production line.