JAGUAR HISTORY

It may seem un-thinkable now, but in the 1970s Jaguar came very close to extinction. The name Jaguar Cars Ltd had already been banished under British Motor Holdings' mismanagement. It was when John Egan was appointed as chief executive and Jaguar was allowed to operate as a separate entity within British Leyland that its survival was finally guaranteed. The Jaguar story began in 1922, when William Lyons and William Walmsley founded the Swallow Sidecar Co in Blackpool. Five years later they diversified into making special bodies for Austin Seven and Morris Cowley chassis in an old munitions factory in Coventry. The name was abbreviated to SS, and before long Lyons had established himself. In September 1935 came the first all-new car - the 2.7-litre four-door saloon, costing £385. It was called the SS Jaguar. But for just £10 more you could have the now-legendary SS100 sports car. When post-war production started in 1945, the company name was changed to Jaguar Cars Ltd; the SS initials had too many bad wartime memories. A revamped version of the pre-war saloon, named the Mk.V, was built, but the real turning point in Jaguar's fortunes was not to appear until the 1948 London Motor Show, when the wraps came off the XK120 sports car, designed by Lyons himself. The show car was not fitted with a working version of the new XK engine, but the following spring an XK120 clocked 132.46mph along the Jabekke Highway in Belgium.
A competition version, the XK120C - better known more simply as the C-type, won the Le Mans 24 hour race at its first outing in 1951. With the D-type, Jaguar was to win Le Mans a further four times during the 1950s. The XK series expanded through the 140 to the 150 versions, while just 16 road-equipped D-types, renamed XKSS, were built before the disastrous fire which all but destroyed the Brown's Lane factory.
In 1961 Sir William (he had been knighted in 1956) unveiled two very different models. Who cared if the only original 3.8 E-types to reach 150 mph were those road tested by The Autocar and Motor magazines? The other model was the mighty Mk.X. The exceptional, braggardly handling and performance of Jaguars lent them a raffish image scarcely recognisable today's brand image.
In 1966 Jaguar, now owners of Daimler and Coventry Climax, merged with BMC. Just two years later BMC itself was swallowed by British Motor Holdings. And two more years on, Jaguar launched the XJ6 saloon - and British Leyland was formed.
The V12 engine came at the wrong time, because in 1973 the OPEC Gulf States pulled the plug on oil supplies. Petrol prices went through the roof and big-engined car sales through the floor. The monolithic British Leyland was in trouble: it was both nationalised and 'rationalised'. At this time Jaguar looked seriously endangered.
John Egan's reign saw Jaguar's fortunes change. He imposed strict quality control over components, sending back those consignments that failed to meet the new standards. Recovery began, and in 1984 Jaguar Cars Ltd was floated on the stock market. Jaguar's reputation for style, desirability and performance has never been in doubt but variable reliability running cost record was more threatening. These problems have been laid to rest in the intervening years.
But despite the appearance in 1985 of a new XK6, with the AJ40 engine, Jaguar was in need of major investment to improve efficiency and develop new models, if it was to be profitable. Too small to survive on its own, in 1989 the company was bought by Ford, reflecting its popularity in the US market. A condition of the government's consent to the sale was that Jaguar remain as a separate legal entity.
Ford's money has enabled the company to bring more plans to fruition during the 1990s. The new XJ saloons launched in 1994 were evidently descended from the previous model but were extensively re-engineered.
The XJS convertible had proved a durable design, but was reaching the limits by the time it was finally replaced in 1996, by the XK8 coupé and convertible. In 1997 the final V12 engine came off the line at the Browns lane factory, leaving the new generation of AJ-V8 and six-cylinder engines supreme. These engines, a Jaguar design built at Ford's Bridgend factory, offered superior performance and economy to the famous old double-six.
But Jaguar's ambitions did not rest at updating the model range. In 1998, a new smaller saloon was launched. The S-type, a totally new car, without looking stolid, aped the styling of 1960s Jaguars rather than the sleeker looks of the XJs or the XK8. It shared some development with Ford's US Lincoln LS, but you wouldn't know it from the Jag.
A still smaller car, codenamed X400, is to be launched in 2001. It will be built at what is presently a Ford plant in Halewood, Jaguar's Castle Bromwich works being fully occupied with other models. If all goes according to plan Jaguar will then have its largest model range and highest production volume ever.

In 1968, Sir William Lyons, founder of Jaguar, unveiled his final sedan design to the world, the XJ6. The Series I thru Series III XJ's are what many consider to be the definitive modern Jaguar sedans. The engine most commonly found in these models was the twin overhead cam 4.2L inline 6 cylinder engine derived from the classic Jaguar XK racing motor. Other engines which were offered included the 2.8L and 3.4L inline 6 and the glorious 5.3L V12. The Series I became the Series II in 1974, with a more "modern" grille being the chief external difference, and the later introduction of the coupe and long wheelbase models. In 1979, the design was revised with assistance from the Italian design bureau of Pininfarina, creating the Series III. In the US market, the Series III terminated with the XJ6 in 1987, but in other markets (notably Canada) the design soldiered on in the form of the XJ12 until the XJ40-based replacement arrived in 1993.

The Series III was originally intended as a stop-gap model; something to keep the wolves from the door while the replacement for the original (then 10-year-old design) was designed and built. However, it ended up becoming the most numerous of the three series because the design, code-named "XJ40" and begun in the 70's, was repeatedly delayed. When the XJ40 (badged as an "XJ6" finally appeared after a (reportedly) 14 year gestation, it replaced the Series III slowly; introduced in Europe in 1986, it was produced alongside Series III cars for the US market until 1987, when the original XJ6 was killed off. By this time, Jaguar had more or less perfected the design of the XJ, and was well on the way to having a reputation as a builder of reliable, refined, and interesting luxury sporting sedans after the quality debacle from the late 70's under the British Leyland conglomerate until 1981-82 (just after Jaguar left the conglomerate).

Due to some disturbing proposals by Jaguar's former parent corporation, British Leyland, the XJ40 was deliberately designed so as to be unable to have a V-configuration engine of any sort. The engine bay was specifically designed for a slant six; in preventing the installation of the Rover V8 truck engine, the designers denied Jaguar a V12 variant of the XJ40. In order to not lose sales, Jaguar continued to build Series III XJ12's on almost a one-off basis until the redesigned XJ40 engine bay made it into production in 1993. Since the United States did not receive any XJ12's during the Series III run due to government regulations, many Americans are unaware of the continuance of the line until 1992. Likewise, many other markets are unaware that the original XJ6 made it into 1987 before being killed off. Of course, these staggered dates of production tend to confuse people when discussing their cars.

The XJ40 was a clean-sheet design, sharing almost nothing with it's predecessor. It was designed to look like a Jaguar, while being much easier and cheaper for the (then) struggling company to make. It was a roomy design, but there was much debate about the largely boxy look of the new sedan. Many thought that it wasn't as distinctive as a Jaguar sedan should be, while others liked it. The XJ40 was also powered by a new family of engines initially, the AJ6 and later the AJ16 slant-six engines, in displacements from 2.9L to 4.0L; the later, XJ12 versions received a revised 6.0L version of the mighty Jaguar 5.3L V12.

Unfortunately, the XJ40 suffered from quality control and design problems its first few years (86-90, especially) and did much to damage the reputation of Jaguar. Door handles breaking off, self-levelling suspension that didn't, computers that reported non-existent problems, and fragile interior trim put many people off. Eventually all these problems were corrected, but the damage was done. Jaguar fell on hard times and was bought out by Ford in 1990.

However, even before the Ford buy-out, forces of renewal were on the move at Coventry. The replacement for the boxy-looking XJ40 was on the drawing boards, and the project, named X300, bore a familiar-looking face; that of the Series III! The X300 was a restyle of the XJ40 to look like the Series III in an effort to increase sales. In addition, many of the XJ40's trouble areas were redesigned or eliminated. This car replaced the XJ40, worldwide, in 1995, with an XJ6 and an XJ12 version (and the same engines as its predecessor). Both of these were scrapped when the Jaguar AJ-V8, an engine design also in progress since before the buy-out, made it into production in the 1998 models as the XJ8.

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