Brief History About Jaguar
Jaguar Cars was founded in 1922 in England by Sir William Lyons and William Walmsley. Originally named the Swallow Sidecar Company (SS Cars Ltd), they built, as the name suggests, motorcycle sidecars.
It wasn’t until 1935 that a car was built and it was called the SS90. Several other cars were built before WW2 with the SS name. However after the war and due to the now frowned upon name, the SS Cars Ltd name was changed to Jaguar. Times were hard for most all automakers after the war, but Jaguar thought back and brought out some wonderful classic sports cars, starting with the 1948 XK120.
One of the highlights of the maker was the design and development of their popular DOHC in-line 6 cylinder engine, which was introduced in 1949.
Jaguar were also successful in Motorsport and won the Le Mans 24 Hour race in 1951, 1953, 1955, 1956, and in 1957.
In 1960 Jaguar purchased The Daimler Company Limited from BSA.
In 1961 The E-Type was launched with great reviews and has now become one of the most admired cars. Even Enzo Ferrari said it was “The most beautiful car ever made”.
In 1965 the British Motor Corporation bought Pressed Steel Company Limited, who made all the bodies for Jaguar, this then led to Jaguar having to merge with the British Motor Corporation and form British Motor (Holdings) Limited and then later joined by the Leyland Motor Corporation forming the British Leyland Motor Corporation in 1968. However things didn’t work out and in 1975 the group was nationalised, with the eventual sale of Jaguar in 1984.
It’s worth noting Jaguar were also still involved and successful in motorsport throughout the 80’s and 90’s.
With Jaguar on its own again and chaired by Sir John Egan, they started to get control of costs and build sales again and even built the outrageous XJ220 in 1992
For some time Ford were interested in acquiring Jaguar and eventually did so along with Aston Martin and Volvo in 1999 and then land Rover in 2000. With Ford, new models appeared and Jaguar became associated more with Land Rover as well.
In 2007 Ford announced it was going to sell Jaguar and Land Rover and in 2008 Indian automotive company Tata Motors were the new owners. In 2013 Jaguar and Land Rover became simply ‘Jaguar Land Rover’.
XF 2008 on & XFR 2009-2015 & XFR-S 2013-2015
