Founded by William Lyons (later Sir William Lyons) during the late 20's as the
Swallow Coachbuilding Company, Jaguar Cars can trace its heritage back to the golden age of motoring. Early Swallow products were essentially rebodied
Austin Sevens, later came the "
SS" sports models which led to the company changing its name to
SS Cars.
For obvious reasons the company changed its name again after WW2 to Jaguar Cars and moved from its original factory in Blackpool, England, to Browns Lane in Coventry. In
1960 Jaguar acquired
Daimler Cars and began to badge engineer its new range of Jaguar and
Daimler cars. Fortunately the marques retained some unique features and Jaguar never attempted to badge engineer its sports models.
1961 witnessed the startling introduction of the
E-Type which stay in production until the arrival of the
XJS in
1975. Other ground breaking models included the powerful
XJ12 and the evergreen
XJ6. Having merged with BMC in
1966, followed by the formation of British Leyland in
1968 Jaguar began to enter a "rough patch" which would last until the 1980's. Salvation arrived in
1988 when US giant
Ford purchased the company. Today the company continues to go from strength to strength.