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.
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