Great Cars: Jaguar

Jaguar, one of the world's most famous car makers, is known for producing machines with style, speed and grace. It made headlines racing in the 1950s and turned heads by producing cars that combined exceptional engineering with outstanding performance. Most remember the E-type, an icon of swinging London in the 1960s. Jaguar has made an indelible mark on the automotive landscape. Today's Jaguars are still inspired by the founder's desire to design cars that are the closest to something that is alive. Cars that are lean, fast and agile. Cars that move like their namesake, a Jaguar. The company has had its ups and downs but seems to be determined to find its way by building beautiful fast cars. It's turned to its heritage to help propel the mark forward. It has a glorious history but the challenge is to build on this while not being trapped by the past. Jaguar was established in England in the roaring 20s. Its 21-year-old founder, William Lyons, was determined to turn his sense of style and business skills into something that moved with the times. He teamed up with a friend, William Wormsley, to make streamlined motorcycle sidecars. Lyons and Wormsley called their new venture the Swallow Sidecar Company or SS. Lyons also tried his hand at car design. Like others, he used the popular Austin 7 as a base for his first efforts. It sold well but he wanted to build something grander. By the 1930s, Lyons was producing a Even though some were four-seaters, they were all long, low, and sporty. His first real breakthrough car was the SS 90, a two-seater that looked like a real sports car. Lyons wanted the company to go public and grow. Wormsley didn't agree and left. At the suggestion of his ad agency, Lyons changed the company's name to SS Jaguar. 1935 saw the birth of the new SS Jaguar 100 sports car. Faster than the SS 90, its combination of power and feline agility quickly gained respect among motoring enthusiasts. A new two-and-a-half liter engine made it fast as well as beautiful. This was a car for owners with a sense of adventure. It was popular and over 300 were built. It was ideally suited for racing. The SS 100 is considered to be a timeless example of the blending of design and performance. When World War II started in 1939, the factory stopped building cars and began to fabricate aircraft and gun parts. But Lyons was also busy planning a new engine to launch when the war ended. He put a team together and each night, as they stood scanning the skies for falling bombs, they talked about the new engine that would establish the company as a world force. When peace came in 1945, they were ready to go. The result? The legendary XK engines. These high-performance straight six-cylinder motors with twin overhead camshafts achieved an output of 160 British horsepower. But one thing had to change in the post-war world. The notorious reputation of the Nazi's SS corps forced Lyons to rename the company. The SS was dropped and it became known simply as Jaguar cars. By 1948, the renamed company was building the new XK engine and an excellent new chassis, but it had no sports car body. Lyons turned to developing a radical new car that would generate publicity. He came up with a sleek and sexy two-seat sports car, the XK 120. This instant classic wowed the crowd when it was introduced in 1948. But people doubted it could reach its claimed top speed of 120 miles per hour. To convince the skeptics, a speed run was set up with one of Jaguar's test drivers. The pressure was on him to make the car live up to its name. The car performed better than planned. The motoring press watched as it clocked 133 miles per hour. Orders poured in and the factory struggled to meet demand. Waiting lists grew longer after the car debuted at Silverstone in a production sports car race in August 1949. Lyons provided three cars to well-known professional drivers. The XK 120s came in first and second and almost captured a third place. The XK 120 now led the pack. Its reputation began to spread. An aspiring American race car driver, Phil Hill, wanted to get his hands on one. He returned to England in the 1970s and talked about his quest for the car. This is a beauty. Finally, I think high lift, camshaft, dual exhaust, wire wheels. Can we drive it? Sure you can. This really brings back old times. You remember how to do this. I remember exactly how to do it. Hill was racing MGs and working as a mechanic in Los Angeles when he was sent to a training program at the Jaguar factory. As an employee, he qualified for a discount on a car. He thought the XK 120 would establish him as a race car driver. I arranged with the company that I worked for in California that I would pick up one of the cars that was part of their very small allotment and that they were going to finish the sale of my MG and I borrowed money from relatives in California and was able to get the car and I raced it. My first road race win was in that car and that was the Pebble Beach in November of 1950. It was an amazing race. His clutch had exploded and he had to start at the back of the pack. Somehow the car held together and he pushed it to victory. The Pebble Beach win established his and the car's reputation as strong competitors. Like the SS 100 before it, the XK 120 was attracting amateur and professional drivers all over the world, seeking a successful competition car. The XK 120 began winning races and rallies, becoming one of the most successful rally cars of all time. It garnered another first and second place finish at Silverstone and the momentum persuaded Lyons that the factory should begin to develop cars like the C-Type solely for racing. But it was the aerodynamic D-Type, unveiled in the spring of 1954, that made Jaguar a racing legend. It was built for straight line speed. The designer, Malcolm Sayre, used aircraft principles to create this car. Like a jet, a thin aluminum body was wrapped around a lightweight monocoque frame. It was designed for long races such as Le Mans. It made its Le Mans debut in 1954 and the race became a contest between Jaguar and Ferrari. Ross takes up his position opposite number 12. Roat and Wharton opposite 14 and 15. 30 seconds to go and the crowd is stilled. The flag falls and as Stirling sprints across to his car, the unbearable tension subsides in the sound and fury of the Le Mans star as they sort themselves out. It's Ferrari 5, Cunningham 11, Talbot 10, Ferrari 3, Ferrari 4. As the race progressed, Ferrari's large engine gave it a 90 second advantage over Jaguar. But despite the odds, Jaguar drivers Tony Roat and Duncan Hamilton were able to take second place. The following year, Jaguar added fuel injection to the engines, raised horsepower to 300 and confidently returned to Le Mans. The flag's down and the drivers start their well-known sprint for the car. All day and into the night, Jaguar battled with Ferrari and won Manuel Fangio driving for Mercedes. The next day, only 21 of the 58 starters were still in the race. Jaguar was among the survivors. Then tragedy. A Mercedes hit an Austin-Healey and flew off the track, disintegrating into a ball of flames over the stunned crowd. The tightly jammed spectators were trapped and 80 died. Mercedes withdrew from the race and all the Ferrari team cars had been sidelined with mechanical problems. Officials resumed the race and the number six Jaguar roared across the finish line to victory. It was a bittersweet win. Even more so for the Jaguar team. William Lyon's son was killed as he drove to the race. Jaguar brought the D-Type back to Le Mans in 1956 to prove that its win hadn't been a fluke. It won again. And in 1957, the D-Types amazed the crowd, taking first, second, third, fourth and sixth place. This racing pedigree explains why surviving D-Types sell for more than a million dollars today. The glory days of the D-Type went up in flames in February 1957 when the Jaguar factory caught fire. The potentially catastrophic blaze was reasonably restricted and within a short time the main sedan production line was up and running again. Unfortunately, the tooling for the D-Types had been destroyed. The fire refocused public attention on Jaguar street cars. The company built a full range of models but the sports cars garnered the most attention. The lessons learned from road racing had been applied to its sports cars, particularly to the XK120's replacement, the XK140, which offered more power and better handling. The XK150 followed in 1957. It had race-inspired disc brakes and a special 265 horsepower version was available for enthusiasts. The XK series was an amazing success story, but it was time to develop a replacement. By 1957, work was underway on the E1A prototype for a new Jaguar sports car. At first glance, it looked like a D-Type, but it wasn't a racer. This lightweight and powerful car was being developed to be driven at top gear on the road, not on the track. The new car was unveiled as the 60s started to swing. It became an icon for the era. The beautiful E-Type, or XKE as it became known in the United States, delivered a top speed of 150 miles per hour in a sexy and stylish package. Its 265 horsepower engine accelerated from zero to 60 in under seven seconds. This was a fun car to look at and to drive. All this excitement and refinement could be had for half the cost of an Aston Martin and a third the price of a Ferrari. The E-Type continued the Jaguar-Ferrari rivalry on the track. Its success prompted Ferrari to build the 250 GTO. Jaguar countered with the lightweight ease. Only 12 of these fuel-injected Ferrari hunters were built. The cars were capable of speeds over 170 miles an hour. They beat Ferrari on several occasions and have sold for over a To stay one leap ahead on the street, Jaguar began to develop a larger E-Type for families. In 1966, the four-seater 2 Plus 2 made the car more practical for drivers with children without sacrificing performance. The cars were popular with enthusiasts. Some joined Jaguar clubs where they could test their skills and learn how to get the most out of their cars. Many of the clubs ran courses that let drivers test their cars. This helped to create a loyal base of young and older Jaguar fans that continues to compete today. In 1969, the Series 2 E-Type was introduced. Rather than a major overhaul, the company introduced cosmetic changes such as uncovered headlights and enlarged parking and signal lights that were moved under the bumpers. The real changes were under way. To comply with new emission regulations in the American market, the engine was detuned. This took away the performance edge that had made the car so much fun to drive. Jaguar realized it had to bring back some of the excitement. It asked Walter Hassan and Harry Mundy, two experienced engineers, to create a B12 engine. So far so good, but why 12 cylinders? Well, we wanted to produce an engine which was outstanding. We want to sell quite a lot in America, so therefore we felt it should be something rather better than the run-of-the-mill V8 engines such are in common usage over there. In 1971, the new V12 engine was introduced to the Series 3 E-Type. This engine revived Jaguar's racing glory. Veteran racing driver and founder of the famous Group 44, Bob Tullius, drove one of two factory-prepared E-Types at Road Atlanta in 1975. The 5.3 liter V12 was the heart of their effort. It had four Stromberg carburetors and it produced 450 horsepower. Road Atlanta was a Jaguar showdown. By lap 12, Tullius was leading the pack by almost 30 seconds. He took the chequered flag and ended a two-year effort by Jaguar to win this race. But racing success wasn't enough to save the E-Type. The world market had changed and the E-Type era came to an end in 1974. Arguably one of the most famous sports cars of all time, it had won races and attracted more than 70,000 buyers. At about the same time, the company's heart and soul, one of the world's greatest car designers, William Lyons, retired. There were many changes to come. Jaguar had been building a wide array of stately cars fitted with the finest woodwork and leather interiors. But their design was outdated by the mid-60s and superseded by something Jaguar hoped would be a quantum leap forward, the XJ. Introduced in 1968, it was hailed as another Lyons masterpiece and set new standards for ride and sophisticated styling. The distinctive XJ model range sustained the company for nearly two decades. Of course, performance wasn't completely forgotten. The XJ-S, launched in 1975, came equipped with a fuel-injected V12 engine that gave the cars tremendous performance. It was fast and refined. It, too, caught the attention of Bob Tullius and his Group 44 race team. The company scored some successes on the tracks and continued to develop new models, such as the XJ220, but stiff competition forced Jaguar to seek financial alliances. Ford Motor Company made a successful offer, more than two and a half billion dollars, and a new era began in 1990. Ford officials said they were committed to maintaining Jaguar's heritage, but the world waited to see results. As Ford addressed a litany of quality and cost issues, it also began to explore something it had heard the public wanted, a true Jaguar sports car, something like the famed XKE. Now, on behalf of all the employees of Jaguar Cars, it gives me great pleasure to ask you to join with me and welcome, for the first time, the new XK8 convertible. The XK8 gave Jaguar fans a car that evoked the great sports cars of the past. It was their first new sports car in a generation, and helped to convince people that Jaguar was in good hands. It's a grabber. It's a car that people will come in off the street to see. While the XK8 won praise, it was not the only new car to come out of the factory. A line of smaller cars, the S-Type, was launched in 1999 to appeal to buyers looking for a stylish and sporty mid-sized sedan. The S-Type was followed by the X-Type in 2002, which expanded Jaguar's range to four models. This all-wheel drive sports sedan was geared to younger buyers who thought Jaguars were slightly beyond their reach or not sporty enough. But it was still up to the XJs to set the pace for the company. Finally, in 2003, a new all-aluminum-bodied XJ emerged. More than half the Jaguars sold since the company started have been XJs. This was a make-or-break-it car. Inside, it had the familiar leather and wood trim that gave it a luxurious feel. But it was performance that made it stand out, especially the supercharged R model. These cars attracted the notice of several highway patrol officers during the press introduction, attesting to the XJ's temptingly fast and smooth acceleration. Aficionados say this is a car worthy of the Jaguar nameplate. Jaguar has come a long way since it was launched by a 21-year-old man with a borrowed thousand pounds over 80 years ago. While William Lyons is gone, his legacy lives on in the historic marque he built, in the cars of today, and hopefully in the Jaguars of tomorrow.