The new Jaguar XF was voted by What Car magazine, car of the year 2008 and quite deservedly so. Contract hire and leasing companies are seeing a strong demand for the vehicle. It seems strange that a vehicle so beautiful and technologically advanced should have its beginnings with a motorcycle sidecar manufacturer; during 1922 two keen motorcyclists William Lyons and William Walmsley formed the Swallow Sidecar Company and stared manufacturing aluminium sidecars. Of the two William Lyons was the driving force behind the company.

At the time motorcycle sidecars were very much in demand, this continued until the ordinary man in the street could afford a car, which was when car sales really took off in the 1960’s. If someone could not afford a car, they would usually have a motorcycle, which was ideal for the single man but not so practical when they got married and had children. The answer was a sidecar. This would allow them to go out for the day as a family; the children would sit reasonably well protected in the sidecar and the wife would ride pillion. The Swallow Sidecar gained market share by having modern and very attractive designs.

By the late 1920’s the company had ventured into cars and built the body for the Austin Seven, a fairly basic and inexpensive car that proved extremely popular. They changed the name of the company to The Swallow Sidecar and Coachbuilding Company and moved from Blackpool where they had been based, to bigger premises in Coventry. Coventry was at the time the centre of the British motor industry. Their work became recognized and respected throughout the industry and they went on to build the bodies for many different manufacturers.

The company was ambitious and before long had launched a car of their own, the impressive SS. It proved to be a real crowd puller when it appeared at the London Motor Show in 1931. Although it only cost 310 to buy, it gave the impression of being far more expensive; it was quite long and low to the ground and its wire wheels gave it a distinctly sporty look.

In keeping with the company’s move into car production the company name was changed to SS Cars in 1933, not long after this William Walmsley resigned. The SS1 Tourer was launched, followed in the mid 1930’s by the sporty SS90, costing less than 400. Then came the 2,663 cc, twin carburettor SS100, for its day it was very fast. However a 3,845 cc version was launched and shown at the 1938 Motor Show. It never properly went into production because the Second World War started soon after.

During the Second World War the company’s manufacturing was switched to military production, as were the car manufacturers in Germany. Just as the allied forces heavily targeted the German motor manufacturer’s factories during their bombing raids, Coventry became one of the most heavily bombed cities in Britain.

SS Cars had little choice but to change its name after the war, sales would not have been helped by having a name that was so closely associated with the recently defeated Nazi Germany. Jaguar Cars became the company’s new name in 1948. That year also saw the launch of the outstanding XK 120.

The XK 120 was unveiled at the 1948 Motor Show; it was called 120 because of the car’s top speed, which was very fast in 1948. There was nothing that equalled its road holding and speed. It was its lines however that made it so outstanding, even 60 years on there are few people who would not find the car beautiful. It was a soft-top sport car, it had wire wheels and sometimes the bonnet had a leather strap. Girls dreamed of sitting in the passenger seat with the wind blowing through their hair, perhaps not surprisingly men rather liked the idea of being in the driving seat. It’s image later became a little tarnished when it was rather unfairly seen as a cad’s car; depicted being driven by a Terry Thomas type character, complete with cigarette holder.

Jaguar enjoyed enormous success in the 50’s; it saw the launch of the Mark V11 it was a large impressive car that enjoyed motor racing success. Britain’s Mike Hawthorn, the country’s first Formula 1 driver raced the car, as did Stirling Moss. The 1956 Monte Carlo Rally was won by a Mark V11. 1954 saw the introduction of the XK 140; it had new features such as rack and pinion steering and a rear seat suitable for small children. It is debatable whether the typical buyer had small children in mind when buying an XK140. Next came the XK150 this model had disc brakes. Jaguar launched the Mark 1, the Mark 11 and the Mark 1X.

When the Mark 11 was launched in 1959 it was a prestige car favoured by successful businessmen but it also became the car driven by the successful criminal. It was also a favourite with car thieves; usually used a few days later as a getaway vehicle for jewellery and bank robberies. In order to keep up the police bought the same model and modified the engine. A Mark 11 Jaguar went under the hammer in an auction in Florida during 2008 for over $75,000 USD.

The Mark X Jaguar was launched in 1961; it was an extremely large vehicle. It was originally aimed at the US market where it wasn’t considered to be particularly large but it seemed enormous to the British motorists, it was very wide and nearly seventeen feet long. The fuel consumption was 17 mpg, which was perfectly acceptable to the US motorist but rather off putting to many British motorists. In the same year the spectacular E Type was launched at the Geneva Motor Show, it was a sensation; there had never been anything like it before or indeed since. Its design with long, low and sleek lines was far ahead of its time. Some years ago in a review carried out by The Sunday Times, of Jaguar cars over the years, they rather impolitely referred to the E Type as the “greatest crumpet catcher known to man” It was almost certainly the most desired car ever produced and it seemed that every man wanted to own one. It turned heads everywhere it went and continues to do so nearly half a century later. It cost a little over 2000, a lot of money at the time but considerably cheaper than its main rivals.

The XJ6 was launched in 1968 and it proved extremely popular between 1968 and 1973 almost 100,000 came off the production line. The series two was to follow and various versions of this model continued through to the present day. During 1972 William Lyons retired from Jaguar.

The XJS was produced from 1975 until 1996. The design appeared to fall short of what had become expected of Jaguar it nevertheless was very well received by the motoring press. Jaguar appeared to be back on track when they launched the XK8 in 1997. Its design was sleek and elegant and reminded some of the wonderful E Type launched 36 years earlier.

In 1966 Sir William Lyons as he had now become was in negotiation with BMC who were interested in purchasing Jaguar. Leyland were also interested in acquiring Jaguar, this put Lyons in a strong negotiating position. BMC won the day, as did Sir William, as he got what he wanted; which was for Jaguar to be autonomous and to have a seat on the board of the company that had now become BMH.

Jaguar became part the British Leyland Corporation in 1968; William Lyons retained a seat on the board and he continued to fight for Jaguar. British Leyland was a very large organisation, which was in turmoil and the situation took a turn for the worse for Jaguar when Sir William Lyons retired in 1972, the company seemed to lose its way. Jaguar Cars ltd became British Leyland Exports ltd. Morale amongst the workforce deteriorated and build quality started to suffer. In 1975 British Leyland became bankrupt and was nationalised by the then Labour government.

Jaguar was fortunate to then be run by Bob Knight a true Jaguar man who was convinced that things could be turned around. Jaguar had become known as a car that was unreliable and very expensive to sort out when it did go wrong. Whilst build quality was indeed poor Knight strongly believed that a lot of the problems were because components supplied by outside companies were not up to standard, which then reflected badly on Jaguar.

In 1980 Bob Knights role was taken over by John Egan. Michael Edwards, who was head of what had become BL, gave more independence to Jaguar and allowed Egan to carry on where Bob Knight had left off, in restoring the company to profitability.

The problem that was first recognised by Bob Knight; outside companies supplying poor quality components to Jaguar, was one of the first areas tackled by Egan; supplying Jaguar with components became conditional on the supplier taking responsibility for the reliability of their components and having to cover the cost of the replacement warranty work if they failed. Perhaps not surprisingly, quality improved very quickly.

The company and had survived and was secure once more, John Egan was chief executive. Jaguar was bought by Ford in 1989 paying $2.5 billion a very large investment indeed and in the following year invested many more billions into the two companies they had bought; Jaguar and Land Rover.

Jaguar never made money for Ford, Land Rover on the other hand did make a profit. 2001 saw the launch of the X Type, which was pretty much a disaster; it had Ford Mondeo components and a real image problem. It was intended to compete with the BMW three series market but became a favourite amongst retirees; it was not good for Jaguar’s reputation.

Ford sold Aston Martin in 2007; they had problems and wanted to get back to basics. This was followed by the sale of land Rover and Jaguar in 2008. The sale price was $2.3 billion, less than Ford had paid for Jaguar some nine years earlier. However both companies had a shortfall in their pension schemes, this had to be made up by Ford at the cost of $600 million. Tata the Indian conglomerate was the purchaser.

Ford was running into problems, it sold it’s interests in Aston Martin during 2007. Jaguar and Land Rover were sold together for $2.3 billion in March 2008. The purchaser was Tata an Indian motor manufacturer, with many other diverse interests around the world. A substantial loss for Ford made worse by having make up the shortfall in both Jaguar and Land Rover’s pension funds, this cost them a further $600,000. Any benefit from the excellent XF model, designed whilst they owned the company, will now go to Tata. At least the sale of its various subsidiaries has allowed Ford to concentrate more on their own problems, without the added distractions.

Some were dismayed to learn that Jaguar had fallen into foreign hands but wasn’t it already in foreign hands? More important is perhaps that Jaguar now has a long term future. From past experience it seems clear that to succeed Jaguar needs to be left alone and Tata have made it very clear that they do not plan to interfere with the day to day running of Jaguar.

A poll was carried out in Germany in 2006, which quite surprisingly revealed that the majority of those polled considered Jaguar a better car than Audi, BMW and Mercedes. Jaguar has always been very strongly favoured by the American market too. The Jaguar XF is proving extremely popular and contract hire and leasing companies are receiving healthy orders for the car. And all this started from motorcycle sidecars some 86 years ago.

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