About Jaguar
Jaguar Cars Ltd., better known simply as Jaguar, is a car manufacturer, with a long history of designing and making fast luxurious cars at affordable prices, Jaguar’s sales slogan for years was “Grace, Space, Pace” epitomised by the record sales achieved by the MK VII, IX, MK I and II saloons and later the XJ6. The company headquarters is at Whitley, Coventry, and Jaguar is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Motors of India. Jaguar was founded as the Swallow Sidecar Company by Sir William Lyons in 1922, originally making motorcycle sidecars before evolving into passenger cars, possibly the most famous of which was the SS100. Following World War 2 the name was changed to Jaguar to avoid association with the initials SS and the Nazi party of Germany.
The period from the Second World War until the eventual merger with the British Motor Corporation in 1968 saw some of the finest Jaguar cars to leave the famous Brown Lane factory in Coventry. Jaguar made its name by producing a series of extremely eye-catching sports cars, in the XK 120 of 1949, developed into XK 140 and XK 150, and the E Type of 1961. These were all successful and embodied Lyons’ mantra of ‘value for money’. They were also highly successful on the international stage of motorsport, a path followed in the 1950s to prove the engineering integrity of the company’s products.
Success enjoyed by Jaguar is attributed to the Twin Cam Straight Six Cylinder Engine, a design conceived pre-war and achieved by design staff at the Coventry plant were dividing their time between fire watching duties and designing the new power plant during the bombing raids of the Second World War.
The time during the merger with the British Motor Corporation later to become part of Leyland Motors subsequently nationalised as British Leyland, saw a decline in the reliability of their cars. The company was restructured within the nationalised group until it was eventually floated off on the stock exchange and later the Ford Motor Company made offers to the US and UK Jaguar shareholders to buy their shares in November 1989. Ford announced that it planned to sell Jaguar, along with Land Rover in June 2007 eventually to become part of the Tata motor group of India.
Current models of Jaguar are mid-size saloon XF, the full sized XJ saloon and the Grand tourer the XK. The Jaguar XF was introduced in 2008 to replace the out-going S-Type in the company’s line-up, whilst the Jaguar XJ is a full-size luxury saloon and the company flagship model. Although it has been in production since 1968 in various forms, the first generation being the last Jaguar car to have creative input by the company’s founder, Sir William Lyons. In early 2003, the third generation XJ arrived in showrooms and while the car’s exterior and interior styling were traditional in appearance, the car was completely re-engineered. The Jaguar XK is a luxury grand tourer that was introduced in 2006, where it replaced the Jaguar XK8. The XK introduced an aluminium monocoque body shell, and is available both as a two-door coupé and two-door cabriolet convertible.
The Jaguar mission is !to create and build beautiful fast cars that brings the enjoyment and exhilaration of driving to life, Jaguar has a long tradition of creating beautiful, fast saloon and sports cars which provide our customers with comfort, refinement and an unrivalled driving experience. To maintain this tradition, we must ensure we have a sustainable business over the long term!
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