ICONIC JAG
THE history of Jaguar is the history of the British motor industry itself. It’s about humble origins, British ingenuity and global success. But it’s also about decline and the eventual takeover by a foreign entity. At the beginning, though, it was about one man.
Born in Blackpool in 1901, William Lyons was the son of William, a musician turned piano tuner, and
Mary Jane Barcroft. Young Lyons was not a keen student, but he did have an affinity with all things mechanical. He bought his first motorbike – a 1911 Triumph – when he was a teenager.
Living near the Lyons family was William Walmsley, a former soldier. He was a motorcycle enthusiast and had designed a handsome bulletshaped sidecar. It caught the attention of Lyons, and in 1922, the two Williams went into business producing it. The Swallow Sidecar was a success, but the ever-ambitious Lyons wanted more. In 1927 the company began offering a pretty, coachbuilt version of the Austin 7.
“I thought it was not sufficient to build up a business on sidecars alone,” Lyons said, “so we produced a body for the Austin 7 called the Swallow. It established the company.” In 1928 Lyons moved to Coventry, the heart of British car manufacturing. Two years later the
Standard Motor
Company started to provide chassis and engines for Lyons’s own stylish bodies. The first was the handsome SS1 (Swallow Special), its long rakish good looks becoming a Lyons trademark over the coming decades.
The Jaguar name first arrived in 1935 as a range of cars that included a four-door saloon and a beautiful two-seater sports car. Featuring a new 2.7-litre six-cylinder engine, the SS90 was as fast as it was handsome, while the SS100 featured an upgraded 3.5-litre engine, which took it to a new
XK120 (1948)
Fast, good-looking and offering post-war glamour, the Jaguar legend started with this car. Meant as a stop-gap to preview Jaguar’s new XK engine destined for a saloon, its popularity helped to strengthen the young company’s position as a manufacturer of desirable motor cars.