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Jaguar Heaven – A look
at some Vintage Jaguars
The name Jaguar has been synonymous with quality British Cars
for the last 90 years. Of course, no longer in British ownership
since the purchase by the Ford Motor Company in the late 90s,
Jaguar cars have been manufactured at the historic Browns Lane
Manufacturing plant in the West Midlands for possibly the last
time in that the old plant is about to be demolished and
manufacturing moved to other plants within the ford group. |
If you were to ask most people their thoughts or images
associated with Jaguars they would probably come up with
possibly some on a glamorous old Jaguars of the 50s and the 60s
namely the e-type or possibly some of the wood tee amongst them
might refer to the nickname given to the Deputy Prime Minister
John Prescott of “Johnny two Jags” so called allegedly because
he insisted on having another check you out drive just behind
his first one that he would've been travelling in case it broke
down!
Or possibly somebody might have mentioned some of the famous
Jaguars used in Films and TV again such as the e-type made
popular by the Saint. and the Avengers in the 60s, the grand old
Jaguar Mk II arguably one of the most famous and recognizable
Jaguars in the world, made popular by TV Detective Inspector
Morse or possibly latterly the “Shaguar” made famous by the film
character Austin Powers.
Either way it seems that films and TV down the decades have not
been complete without the obligatory Jaguar somewhere in the
background.
So what is all this heritage about then? As has been mentioned
Jaguars have been manufactured since 1922 having been first
known as the Swallow Sidecar Company (SS Cars Ltd) and changing
the name to Jaguar in 1945. Initially the company specialized in
motorcycle side cars and accessories however the two founders of
the company William Lyons and William Walmsley introduced to the
world the first Jaguar as a 2.5 Litre saloon in 1935 pound
following on from the success about decided to give the name to
the entire company in 1945.
If there was any particular decade about possibly really could
be associated with the name Jaguar it was possibly the 1950s
white check your introduced a series of very elegantly styled
sports cars and luxury saloon's. This was a period of great
consolidation within the British car manufacturing industry and
the company bought the Daimler car company in 1960 from the
Birmingham small arms company (BSA) and used this name is a
brand name for the brand name for the companies Most luxurious
saloon cars.
The theory that consolidation within the British car industry
and then gathered speed with Jaguar merging with the British
motor Corp (BMC), the combination of the Austin and Morris
brands to form British Motor Holdings in 1966. The mergers
continued with Leyland and Rover joining the company which then
became merged as the British Leyland motor Corp. in 1968. All
throughout this period the luxurious end of the range cars were
always manufactured by Jaguar. As with all things of the
financial difficulties beset the industry and slowly but surely
British Leyland ran into difficulties and had to sell off its
constituent parts. Firstly by way of privatization with Jaguar
becoming a company in its own right again and then last Sunday
with the Ford Motor Company of Detroit coming in and buying
Jaguar look stock and barrel. Now it seems the circle is turning
once again with Ford looking to offload their Jaguar subsidiary
but even in this action they will stand to make a fairly hefty
profit on the entire deal.
What price the survival of the Big Cat?
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