Jaguar

Jaguar Cars is a British automobile manufacturer famous for luxury saloon and sports cars.

History

Founded in 1922 as the Swallow Sidecar Company by William Lyons, it was renamed Jaguar Cars after World War 2 because of the unfavorable connotations of the initials, SS. The company is now owned by the Ford Motor Company. Jaguar is known for its luxury saloons and sports cars, market segments it has been in since the 1930s.

Jaguar merged with the British Motor Corporation (the Austin-Morris combine) to form British Motor Holdings in 1966. After merger with Leyland and Rover, the resultant company then became British Leyland Motor Corporation in 1968.

Financial difficulties and the publication of the Ryder Report led to effective nationalisation in 1975 and it became British Leyland Ltd known just as BL.

In 1984, Jaguar was floated off as a separate company on the stock market - one of the Thatcher government's many privatizations - with the rest as the Austin Rover group. Then it was taken over by Ford in 1989-1990. In 1999 it was made part of Ford's new Premier Automotive Group along with Aston Martin, Volvo Cars and Lincoln. Land Rover was added to the group in 2001 following its purchase from BMW.

The company was originally located in Blackpool but re-located to Coventry to be at the heart of the British motor industry. Today, Jaguars are assembled at Castle Bromwich in Birmingham and Halewood in Liverpool. The historic Browns Lane plant closed in 2005 leaving aluminium vehicle production at Castle Bromwich and steel at Halewood.

Jaguar owns the Daimler car company (not to be confused with Daimler-Benz), which it bought in 1960 from the Birmingham Small Arms Company (BSA). Since then Daimler has been little more than a brand name for Jaguar's most luxurious saloons.

Historical Models

Although the post WW II market had seen Mark IV and Mark V sales as satisfactory, their appearance was essentially unchanged from pre-War models.

Introducing the large Mark VII Sedan in 1951, a car especially conceived for the American Market, Jaguar cars soon found itself overwhelmed with orders. The Mark VII and its successors gathered rave review after rave review from magazines such as Road and Track and Motor.

In 1956 a Jaguar Mark VII won the prestigious Monte-Carlo Rally.

The 1955 Mark I was the first monocoque (unibody) car from Jaguar. In 1959, the car was improved with a larger engine and wider windows and became the Mark II, one of the most recognizable Jaguar models ever produced.

Of the more recent saloons, the most significant is the XJ (1968-present), still the definitive Jaguar car for many. Since 1968 the Series I XJ has seen major changes in 1973 (to Series II), 1979 (to Series III), 1986 [Europe] / 1987 [United States] (XJ40), 1995 (X300), 1997 (to the V-8 powered X308), 2003 (the present model, X350). The most luxurious XJ models carry either the Vanden Plas or Daimler nameplates.