PREFACE

There’s always been something special about the Jaguar brand, even at the very start before World War II when the name was just getting established. At the time, it stood for sportiness and excellent value, attributes that continue to this day.

In the postwar years, Jaguar’s slogan, Grace … Space … and Pace …, said it all. The incredible success the brand enjoyed from those early years escalated the cars’ esteem and reputation to become a world leader in quality, performance, and value. Success in world sports car racing furthered the brand’s acclaim, with no fewer than seven outright wins at the Le Mans 24-hour endurance race, and many other feats in racing and competitive rallying.

Those achievements, particularly in the 1950s, aided by an expanding range of superb new models, led to company founder Sir William Lyons receiving a Knighthood for his work in the British motor industry. Success led to further success with the introduction of an exciting range of new cars like the E-Type sports and Mark 2 compact saloon in the 1960s, and then into the XJ era, a model continued to this day.

Thanks to the ups and downs of the automotive industry and world trade over the years, Jaguar has been through the mill a few times. Merging with the British Motor Corporation (BMC) in 1968 to form British Motor Holdings, then going through the traumas of public ownership and British Leyland, and eventually into privatization and then Ford ownership in the 1990s.

The business (along with Land Rover) is now in the hands of the Indian Tata Group, which continues to develop the Jaguar reputation for “Best of British” engineering and styling, one of the few British manufacturers to have sustained all that has been thrown at it over the years. Success has bred success.

This book celebrates Jaguar’s ability to create stylish and exciting cars from its early beginnings, right up to the present day.