Jaguar (, ) is a British sports car and luxury vehicle brand owned by Tata Motors, Operating under the merged division Jaguar Land Rover Limited (JLR).
Jaguar's business was founded as the Swallow Sidecar Company in 1922, originally making motorcycle sidecars before developing bodies for passenger cars. Under the ownership of SS Cars, the business expanded to complete cars made in association with Standard Motor Company, many of which bore the Jaguar model name. The company's name was changed from SS Cars to Jaguar Cars in 1945. A merger with the British Motor Corporation followed in 1966,"Jaguar Group of companies is to merge with The British Motor Corporation Ltd., as the first step towards the setting up of a joint holding company to be called British Motor (Holdings) Limited." Official statement released at press conference at the Great Eastern Hotel, London, 1966. the resulting enlarged company was renamed as British Motor Holdings (BMH), which in 1968 merged with Leyland Motor Corporation and became British Leyland, itself to be nationalised in 1975.
Jaguar was spun off from British Leyland and was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1984 until it was acquired by Ford in 1990. Since the late 1970s, Jaguar manufactured cars for the prime minister of the United Kingdom, the most recent prime ministerial car delivery being an XJ (X351) in May 2010. The company also held royal warrants from Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles III.
In 2000, Ford also bought Land Rover, and in 2008 it sold both Jaguar Cars and Land Rover to Tata Motors. Tata created Jaguar Land Rover as a subsidiary holding company. At the operating company level, Jaguar Cars was merged with Land Rover in 2013 to form Jaguar Land Rover, the single design, manufacturing, sales company and brand owner for both Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles.
Since the Ford ownership era, Jaguar and Land Rover have used joint design facilities in engineering centres at Whitley in Coventry and Gaydon in Warwickshire and Jaguar cars have been assembled in plants at Castle Bromwich and Solihull. On 15 February 2021, Jaguar Land Rover announced that all Jaguar-badged cars would be fully electric by 2025.
History Founding The Swallow Sidecar Company was founded in 1922 by two motorcycle enthusiasts, William Lyons and William Walmsley. In 1934, Walmsley elected to sell-out and in order to buy the Swallow business (but not the company which was liquidated) Lyons formed SS Cars, finding new capital by issuing shares to the public.
Jaguar first appeared in September 1935 as a model name on an SS 2½-litre sports saloon. A matching open two seater sports model with a 3½-litre engine was named SS Jaguar 100.
On 23 March 1945, the S. S. Cars shareholders in general meeting agreed to change the company's name to Jaguar Cars Limited. Said chairman William Lyons "Unlike S. S. the name Jaguar is distinctive and cannot be connected or confused with any similar foreign name."S.S. Cars Limited The Times 4 April 1945 page 10
Though five years of pent-up demand ensured plenty of buyers production was hampered by shortage of materials, particularly steel, issued to manufacturers until the 1950s by a central planning authority under strict government control. Jaguar sold Motor Panels, a pressed steel body manufacturing company bought in the late 1930s, to steel and components manufacturer Rubery Owen, and Jaguar bought from John Black's Standard Motor Company the plant where Standard built Jaguar's six-cylinder engines. From this time Jaguar was entirely dependent for their bodies on external suppliers, in particular then independent Pressed Steel and in 1966 that carried them into BMC, BMH and British Leyland.
Jaguar made its name by producing a series of successful eye-catching sports cars, the Jaguar XK120 (1948–54), Jaguar XK140 (1954–57), Jaguar XK150 (1957–61), and Jaguar E-Type (1961–75), all embodying Lyons' mantra of "value for money". The sports cars were successful in international motorsport, a path followed in the 1950s to prove the engineering integrity of the company's products.
Jaguar's sales slogan for years was "Grace, Space, Pace","The classic has to be "Grace... Space... Pace," which was used throughout the 1950s and 1960s". a mantra epitomised by the record sales achieved by the MK VII, IX, Mks I and II saloons and later the XJ6. During the time this slogan was used, but the exact text varied.
The core of Bill Lyons' success following the Second World War was the twin-cam straight six engine, conceived pre-war and realised while engineers at the Coventry plant were dividing their time between fire-watching and designing the new power plant. It had a hemispherical cross-flow cylinder head with valves inclined from the vertical; originally at 30 degrees (inlet) and 45 degrees (exhaust) and later standardised to 45 degrees for both inlet and exhaust.
As fuel octane ratings were relatively low from 1948 onwards, three piston configuration were offered: domed (high octane), flat (medium octane), and dished (low octane).
The main designer, William Heynes, assisted by Walter Hassan, was determined to develop the Twin OHC unit. Bill Lyons agreed over misgivings from Hassan. It was risky to take what had previously been considered a racing or low-volume and cantankerous engine needing constant fettling and apply it to reasonable volume production saloon cars.
The subsequent engine (in various versions) was the mainstay powerplant of Jaguar, used in the XK 120, Mk VII Saloon, Mk I and II Saloons and XK 140 and 150. It was also employed in the E Type, itself a development from the race winning and Le Mans conquering C and D Type Sports Racing cars refined as the short-lived XKSS, a road-legal D-Type.
Few engine types have demonstrated such ubiquity and longevity: Jaguar used the Twin OHC XK Engine, as it came to be known, in the Jaguar XJ6 saloon from 1969 through 1992, and employed in a J60 variant as the power plant in such diverse vehicles as the British Army's Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance (Tracked) family of vehicles, as well as the Fox armoured reconnaissance vehicle, the Ferret Scout Car, and the Stonefield four-wheel-drive all-terrain lorry. Properly maintained, the standard production XK Engine would achieve 200,000 miles of useful life.
Two of the proudest moments in Jaguar's long history in motor sport involved winning the Le Mans 24 hours race, firstly in 1951 and again in 1953. Victory at the 1955 Le Mans was overshadowed by it being the occasion of the worst motorsport accident in history. Later in the hands of the Scottish racing team Ecurie Ecosse two more wins were added in 1956 and 1957.
Jaguar produced a number of cars that include the 3-litre, 3½ litres, the Mark VII, VIII, IX, the compact Mark I, 2, the XJ6 and the sports saloon XJ12.
Combined with the trend-setting XK 120, XK 140, and XK 150 series of sports car, and nonpareil E-Type, Jaguar's elan as a prestige motorcar manufacturer had few rivals. The company's post-War achievements were notable, considering both the shortages that drove Britain (the Ministry of Supply still allocated raw materials) and the state of metallurgical development of the era.
Daimler In 1950, Jaguar agreed to lease from the Ministry of Supply the Daimler Shadow 2 factory in Browns Lane, Allesley, Coventry, which at the time was being used by Daimler and moved to the new site from Foleshill over the next 12 months.'Sir William Lyons – The Official Biography', Philip Porter & Paul Skilleter, page 120 onwards Jaguar purchased Daimler, not to be confused with Daimler-Benz or Daimler AG, in 1960 from BSA. From the late 1960s, Jaguar used the Daimler marque as a brand name for their most luxurious saloons.
An end to independence (1965–1984) Pressed Steel Company Limited made all Jaguar's (monocoque) bodies leaving provision and installation of the mechanicals to Jaguar. In mid-1965 British Motor Corporation (BMC), the Austin-Morris combine, bought Pressed Steel. Lyons became concerned about the future of Jaguar, partly because of the threat to ongoing supplies of bodies, and partly because of his age and lack of an heir. He therefore accepted BMC's offer to merge with Jaguar to form British Motor (Holdings) Limited. At a press conference on 11 July 1965 at the Great Eastern Hotel in London, Lyons and BMC chairman George Harriman announced, "Jaguar Group of companies is to merge with The British Motor Corporation Ltd., as the first step towards the setting up of a joint holding company to be called British Motor (Holdings) Limited". In due course BMC changed its name to British Motor Holdings at the end of 1966.
BMH was pushed by the Government to merge with Leyland Motor Corporation Limited, manufacturer of Leyland bus and truck, Standard-Triumph and, since 1967, Rover vehicles. The result was British Leyland Motor Corporation, a new holding company which appeared in 1968, but the combination was not a success. A combination of poor decision making by the board along with the financial difficulties of, especially, the Austin-Morris division (previously BMC) led to the Ryder Report and to effective nationalisation in 1975.
Temporary return to independence (1984–1989) Over the next few years it became clear that because of the low regard for many of the group's products insufficient capital could be provided to develop and begin manufacture of new models, including Jaguars, particularly if Jaguar were to remain a part of the group.page 49, Andrew M. McLaughlin, William A. Maloney, The European Automobile Industry: Multi-Level Governance, Policy and Politics Taylor & Francis e-Library 2005. accessed 31 Jan 2013
In July 1984, Jaguar was floated off as a separate company on the London Stock Exchange – one of the Thatcher government's many privatisations– to create its own track record.page 50, Andrew M. McLaughlin, William A. Maloney, The European Automobile Industry: Multi-Level Governance, Policy and Politics Taylor & Francis e-Library 2005.
Installed as chairman in 1980, Sir John Egan is credited for Jaguar's unprecedented prosperity immediately after privatisation. In early 1986 Egan reported he had tackled the main problems that were holding Jaguar back from selling more cars: quality control, lagging delivery schedules, poor productivity. He laid off about one third of the company's roughly 10,000 employees to cut costs.Zetlin, M. (1986). John Egan: Tough leadership turns Jaguar around. Management Review, 75(5), (May 1986) 20–20. Commentators later pointed out he exploited an elderly model range (on which all development costs had been written off) and raised prices. He also intensified the effort to improve Jaguar's quality. In the US the price increases were masked by a favourable exchange rate.The Badge on the Bonnet. The Times 3 November 1989; pg. 13; Issue 63542.
Ford era (1989–2008)
Ford made offers to Jaguar's US and UK shareholders to buy their shares in November 1989; Jaguar's listing on the London Stock Exchange was removed on 28 February 1990. In 1999 it became part of Ford's new Premier Automotive Group along with Aston Martin, Volvo Cars and, from 2000, Land Rover. Under Ford's ownership, Jaguar never made a profit."Although Land Rover remains profitable, Ford has never managed to make money from its investment in Jaguar."
Under Ford's ownership Jaguar expanded its range of products with the launch of the S-Type in 1999 and X-type in 2001. After PAG acquired Land Rover in May 2000 purchase by Ford, Land Rover became closely associated with Jaguar. In many countries they shared a common sales and distribution network (including shared dealerships), and some models shared components, although the only shared production facility was Halewood Body & Assembly – which manufactured the technically related X-Type and the Freelander 2. Operationally the two companies were effectively integrated under a common management structure within Ford's PAG.