Although it was thought that the E-type would be replaced by an F-type sports car, instead in 1975 came the up-market Malcolm Sayer-styled XJ-S grand tourer. This is a 1979 car.
‘It is clear that the E-type replacement, scheduled for later this year, will be a closed coupe rather than a rugged wind-in-the-hair two-seater.’
One of the reasons that the last fifty E-types took so long to sell was that the public were expecting the model to be replaced by another sports car. It was what the motoring press continually and speculatively referred to as the F-type. But, as we have seen, what emerged seven months after the E-type’s demise was the upmarket XJ-S Grand Touring coupe, which was a totally different type of car. The purpose of this chapter is to see how the ‘F’ became the S and much credit should go to Jaguar historian Philip Porter, who has managed to untangle and give a sense of progression to what is a far from straightforward story.
As early as 1966, when the E-type had been in production for five years, Jaguar felt that its long bonnet might be rather intimidating for the European market, so Malcolm Sayer produced designs for a rather curious rendering, with a wheelbase cut from 105 to 94in (2.67 to 2.39m) and a foreshortened bonnet with projecting headlights. Perhaps thankfully the idea was not proceeded with. However, probably in 1967, Sayer once again returned to the concept of the 94in (2.39m) wheelbase and schemed out a design for a 2 + 2, unchanged from the bulkhead back, but also with a similar bonnet to the earlier concept and effectively a scaled-down version of the original. A 3-litre engine was specified and it was also envisaged that 13in (330mm) rather than the usually 15in (381mm) wheels be fitted. Yet another variation was considered, probably in 1968, essentially similar to the first rendering but with a windscreen with far more rake though this particular scheme had the 96in (2.44m) wheelbase of the production two-seater. Thankfully none of these thoughts progressed beyond the drawing board.
Before looking at what were considered to be true E-type replacements, reference must be made to another project mooted in the 1960s, which was undertaken by the British Motor Corporation.
It will be recalled that, in 1966, Jaguar had merged with BMC and had thus become privy to the Corporation’s future planning. At that time BMC recognised that the long running Austin Healey 3000, a design that was rooted in the early 1950s, would soon require replacement. It therefore conceived the Austin project XC512, or ADO30 in corporate coding, a sports car intended to be powered by the 4-litre Rolls-Royce engine then fitted to the slow selling Vanden Plas Princess R saloon of 1964. ADO30’s coupe body was an uneasy amalgam of Pininfarina and Longbridge influences, while suspension was all-independent Hydrolastic units of the type developed for the l,800cc saloon.
In theory, this would have represented a formidable challenge to the E-type in America. But the reality was that the project was a non-starter and, according to Donald Healey’s son, Geoffrey, who saw the car, recalls it being derogatorily described as ‘The Thing’, ‘The Monster’ or more memorably ‘Fireball XL5’. Despite this, work continued on the project though it was soon recognised that the overhead inlet/side exhaust Rolls-Royce engine did not develop sufficient power for a sports car. Rolls-Royce then developed a new overhead valve cylinder head for the unit but the BMC/Jaguar alliance of 1966 resulted in a scheme being conceived for an XK-engined version with a 3-litre power unit and different suspension – in this instance, courtesy of the MGC. There were additional schemes for Daimler 2½ and 4½ versions. Once again these ideas did not progress beyond the paper stage because thankfully, ‘Fireball XL5’ was cancelled, according to Healey, after ‘… a well-known motoring journalist tried the car on a track. He soon convinced the perpetrators of the Monster that its road-holding and handling were diabolical.’ So XC512 disappeared from the scene, having absorbed approximately £1 million of corporate funding.
Lyons is rumoured to have had a hand in the demise of ADO30 which, in reality, did not begin to represent a threat to the E-type. But later he was responsible for killing a more formidable challenger to the model in the shape of a mid-engined Rover, powered by the firm’s soon to be introduced Buick-based 3.5-litre V8 engine. Created by the talented duo of Spen King and Gordon Bash-ford in 1966, it was designated P6B and could well have been marketed under the Alvis badge, Rover having taken over that company in 1965. But in 1967, Rover itself was bought by Leyland and the creation of British Leyland in the following year meant that the once rival Rover and Jaguar companies were in common ownership. Lyons immediately saw the P6B as representing a very real threat to the E-type, which he made very clear to corporation’s chairman, Lord Stokes. John Barber, at this time British Leyland’s finance director, who drove the Rover, recalls the circumstances of the model’s demise: ‘It was a super car… But it was pressure from Lyons that cooked it. Bill was a very nice man but he only thought Jaguar. He wasn’t very interested in British Leyland and he was afraid that Rover would damage Jaguar. He kept on and on about it, so it was dropped.’
All the projects previously referred to were simply developments on the existing E-type hull. Contemporary with these developments were the XJ21 project, on which work began in about 1966. The first scheme, dated October 1966, still clearly resembles the E-type with the same 105in (2,667mm) wheel-base though with a two inch wider track at 52in (1,321mm). Identified as Body Type A, it was a development of the 2 + 2 E-type and featured a modified nose and windscreen with pronounced rake. Body Type B, of January 1967, had an alternative nose and air intake, and wider rear wings. Although this was a coupe, Sayer also set down a convertible version. He penned yet a further open variation in March 1967, when there were thoughts about the open car with both 2 + 2 and standard wheelbase.
By 1967–1968 Jaguar’s thoughts about its future models were beginning to gel and were set down in an internal company document. It included no less than four future sports cars. Initially there was a long wheelbase roadster, which would be 5.3-litre V12-powered, with an alternative 3.5-litre V8 derivative also available. Next came a two-seater coupe with bodywork bearing the distinctive rear ‘flying buttresses’ which were later to emerge on the XJ-S. This would be powered by the same pair of engines. A 2 + 2 version was essentially the then current E-type though with the same eight- and twelve-cylinder variants. Then came a totally new model, described as a ‘four-seater sports sedan’. Also known as the XJ 3-litre GT, this was a smaller car with a 96in (2.44m) wheel-base, distinctive twin headlamps and truncated Kamm tail. Projected power units were 2.5-litre Daimler or 3.5-litre Jaguar V8s. In reality, it was only the V12-powered E-type that reached production status. The V8 version of the V12 was also side-lined because this 60 degree engine never ran satisfactorily.
Although it was thought that the E-type would be replaced by an F-type sports car, instead in 1975 came the up-market Malcolm Sayer-styled XJ-S grand tourer. This is a 1979 car.
Up until this point, all the XJ21 schemes were essentially variations on the existing E-type shape but, by 1968, Malcolm Sayer clearly began to be influenced by the sharper, crisper lines of contemporary Italian sports cars.
Transport for a speed king. Donald Campbell’s appropriately blue 4.2-litre E-type coupe pictured outside his Surrey home early in 1966. Alongside is a mock-up of his latest Bluebird, a Mach 1.1 jet-powered car.
The Bertone-styled 2 + 2-based Pirana attracted plenty of attention on its appearance at the 1967 Motor Show. Its angular profile was to inspire Malcolm Sayer for the lines of the unseen but projected XJ21 E-type replacement.
Perhaps one of the most influential was that of the one-off Bertone-styled, E-type-based Pirana, displayed at the 1967 Motor Show and commissioned by the Daily Telegraph newspaper’s Weekend Telegraph colour magazine. It was a theme which was perpetuated on the Lamborghini Espada, also the work of Bertone’s celebrated chief stylist, Marcello Gandini, which appeared at the 1968 Geneva Motor Show. A batch of Jaguar drawings executed at this time show this influence. It appears that the XJ21’s design was finalised in 1968, the intention being to produce it in 2 + 2 and open versions on the same 105in (2.67m) wheelbase of the 2 + 2. Instructions were issued to the Pressed Steel Company to begin work on the body tooling, with a view to the XJ21 entering production in September 1970.
So far so good but, on 14 November 1968, chief engineer William Heynes set down his thoughts to Sir William Lyons in a document headed: ‘E-type Vehicle Project Plan’. As already mentioned, Heynes was convinced that the V12 engine should first be used in the E-type, prior to its fitment in the XJ12 saloon.
The intention was to introduce the V12 E-type, designated XJ25, in January 1970 with the XJ21 following in February 1971. But the V12 engine was running behind schedule and, in view of this, it was subsequently decided to go ahead with the V12-powered E-type, which duly appeared in March 1971. However, this meant bypassing the XJ21 altogether and moving straight on to the V12-engined XJ-S. Two months before, on 9 September, Malcolm Sayer had sent Sir William his ideas for a ‘… 2 + 2 sports car based on XJ4 parts’. This represented the starting point of what Jaguar internally designated as the XJ27 and what was to emerge as the XJ-S in September 1975.
The Pirana
Although there have been attempts by a number of coachbuilders to offer their interpretations on the E-type theme, perhaps the most successful example was displayed at the 1967 London Motor Show when the Bertone-bodied, E-type-based Pirana was unveiled for the first time.
Commissioned by the Daily Telegraph newspaper’s colour magazine, the Pirana was conceived just eight months prior to its Earls Court debut. The occasion was the Geneva Motor Show in March when a group of motoring journalists began thinking about the ultimate exotic car which incorporated the best of Lamborghini, Aston Martin, Ferrari, Maserati and Jaguar. A key participant was Courtenay Edwards, the magazine’s motoring correspondent, and back in London the idea was taken up by the supplement’s editor, John Anstey. He decided that the dream could become a reality, with the resulting car proclaiming the Speed with Luxury theme.
Sir William Lyons was approached and he agreed to sell the Telegraph a 4.2-litre 2 + 2 underframe while the Turin-based Bertone company was prepared to undertake the design and construction of the body and have the car ready for that year’s London Motor Show. The Pirana’s body was the work of Bertone’s chief stylist, Marcello Gandini, who already had the lines of the fabled Lamborghini Miura to his credit. Further assistance came from such British firms as Triplex, who supplied the Sundym glass; electrical equipment manufacturer Lucas and Smiths Industries, who produced the air conditioning system and assisted with the instruments.
The car was completed on time for the London show, which opened on 18 October, where, displayed on the Bertone stand, it proved to be a major attraction. The hatchback theme of the 2 + 2 was perpetuated though the Pirana had a distinctive Kamm tail and was finished in a shimmering acrylic silver, flecked with particles of aluminium. The following month Bertone displayed the Pirana at the Turin show. Later it crossed the Atlantic for exhibition in New York and Montreal and survives today in a private British collection.
It was not until 1988 that the XJ-S became available in convertible form in addition to the coupe. Both are still available at the time of writing (1989) while the long-anticipated F-type sports car waits in the wings.
As the Pirana showed, styling had moved on since the E-type’s lines were conceived in the late 1950s. By 1969, the model was clearly in need of replacement. This is a Series II American specification car of that year.
Thoughts of a ‘luxury type sports car’ had first appeared in a memorandum William Heynes submitted to Sir William Lyons in 1963, following the creation of an experimental E-type-based four-seater coupe in 1961. This same project also represented the starting point of no less than two further models, the 2 + 2 E-type as mentioned in Chapter 3, and what was dubbed project XJ4, which would finally appear as the XJ6 saloon of 1968.
As a project totally unrelated to that of the E-type, the XJ-S was created with two quite distinctive parameters firmly in place, which dictated its size and body type. Firstly, there was the considerable financial inducement to base the car on the floorpan of the new XJ6 saloon and its running gear. Secondly, there was the ever present sceptre of the all-important American safety regulations which, at that time, were thought would render the open car obsolete. As it transpired, these proposals were cancelled in 1974 but not before the XJ-S was too far advanced to be initially offered in open form, as was British Leyland’s controversial Triumph TR7 corporate sports car, which also appeared in 1975. Malcolm Sayer was responsible for the XJ27’s lines though they differed radically from those of the C, D and E-types. The body was dominated at the rear by twin ‘flying buttresses’ of the type which had first appeared on the one-off Pininfarina-bodied Ferrari Dino 206S Speciale at the 1965 Paris Motor Show and finally emerged on the production Dino of 1967. It will be recalled that they had initially cropped up on a revised version of a proposed E-type 2 + 2.
Sadly Malcolm Sayer died in July 1970, aged only fifty-four, and work on the XJ-S was continued by Doug Thorpe, later to become Jaguar’s director of styling, and his team. As it happened, Thorpe was unhappy about the rear buttress, and some of the model’s other features, but the time factor meant that it was impractical to make any major changes to the car’s bodywork and only detail modifications were possible. The XJ-S was based on a 102in (2.59m) wheel-base version of the XJ6’s 108in (2.74m) floorpan, achieved by moving the rear-suspension forward. Its engine was the latest version of the 5.3-litre V12 engine, as employed in the Series II XJ12 saloon announced in May 1975, and thus fitted with Lucas fuel injection.
But, above all, with the arrival of the XJ-S in 1975, Jaguar abandoned one plank of its marketing philosophy. For with this model the firm departed, to some extent, from the Lyons value-for-money approach which had been a feature of every car that the company had built since its 1931 inception. At £8,900 the XJ-S was a Supercar, and the most expensive Jaguar ever, though still a good £5,500 less than its contemporary V12-engined Ferrari 365 GT4, which cost £14,584. But from its outset the XJ-S was a controversial car. Its lines were perhaps the least satisfactory of any Jaguar. Not only that. The 150mph (241kph) Grand Tourer was a thirsty car giving a fuel consumption of 14mpg in the 1973 post oil crisis gloom. Although air conditioning was a standard fitment, there was disappointment that the car’s interior lacked the traditional wood and leather associated with Jaguar saloons. In fact the XJ-S reflected the plainer interior of the firm’s sports cars, as introduced on the XK150 back in 1957 but that, of course, was a considerably cheaper car aimed at a very different and less demanding clientele.
But the XJ21, due to appear in 1970, never arrived and instead, in 1971, came the V12-powered Series III E-type.
As if this wasn’t enough, the same downturn in the world economy was responsible for toppling British Leyland into deficit and, in 1975, the company was nationalised. Tragically for Jaguar, the Ryder Report commissioned by the government recommended that the renamed Leyland Cars be run centrally with the individual plants and corporate identities downgraded. Largely through the efforts of plant manager Peter Craig, who died suddenly in 1977 and Bob Knight, who had taken over from William Heynes as engineering director in 1969, Jaguar weathered the terrible 1975–1977 era though the latter year saw the arrival of Michael Edwardes as Leyland’s new chairman.
Jaguar, Coventry’s great survivor
When the E-type was announced in 1961, Jaguar was still a relatively small company which, that year, produced just 24,018 cars. It was dwarfed by the output of the city’s mainstream car makers, Rootes and Standard-Triumph, though today Jaguar is the only car manufacturer left in a city which was once the motoring capital of the country.
But back in 1928, when Jaguar’s SS predecessors arrived in Coventry, it was home to no less than eight important car makers: Daimler, Hillman, Humber, Riley, Rover, Singer, Standard, Triumph and specialist manufacturers, Alvis, Armstrong Siddeley and Lea-Francis.
By the 1948 Motor Show, where the Jaguar XK120 made its sensational debut and the first to be held after the Second World War, the Coventry scene had changed dramatically. Hillman and Humber were part of the Rootes Group, Triumph was bankrupted and had been taken over by Standard during the war, Rover had left the city and moved to its Solihull shadow factory and an insolvent Riley was absorbed by the Nuffield Organisation and production transferred to the MG factory.
When the E-type had ceased production in 1974, there had been many more casualties. The never robust Lea-Francis company had effectively come to the end of the road in 1953, the last Armstrong Siddeley left the Parkside factory in 1960, Alvis followed in 1967, while the ailing Rootes Group had been totally absorbed by the American Chrysler Corporation in the same year. Jaguar itself had taken over Daimler in 1960 but, from 1968, it and Standard-Triumph were part of British Leyland.
Today, with the exception of Jaguar, Coventry’s motor manufacturers have all but disappeared. The last British-designed Triumph was built there in 1980 and although Peugeot, which bought Chrysler’s British operations in 1978, is still producing cars at Ryton outside the city, the Hillman, Humber and Singer names have followed scores of other Coventry companies into oblivion.
After two years as a far from satisfactory part of the regrouped Jaguar–Rover–Triumph division of the renamed BL Cars, it was Edwardes who, in 1980, appointed forty year old John Egan as Jaguar’s chairman, its first for five years. It was a recognition that Jaguar Cars was once again to emerge as a separate entity but 1980 was a year in which the firm built a mere 13,360 cars, its lowest figure since 1957, a reminder that in addition to all the firm’s other troubles, the effects of the second, and far more serious oil crisis of 1979, were beginning to bite. Demand for the XJ6 saloon slumped, while customers for the XJ-S were virtually nonexistent. When Egan took over, he remembers that: ‘They had already stopped making it [the XJ-S]. OK, we once opened the lines to make a few for Canada but in the main it was a very hit and miss, stop and start process.’ Egan was determined to keep the S in production and embarked on a drive to improve its quality and that of the mainstream XK6 saloon. In 1981 the high efficiency (HE) version of the V12 engine arrived with a new design of cylinder head, developed by Swiss engineer Michael May, and intended to improve the unit’s fuel consumption by around twenty per cent. Jaguar also took the opportunity to introduce a greatly improved interior with burr walnut and leather upholstery very much in evidence. In 1983 the XJ-S was the first recipient of Jaguar’s new six-cylinder 3.6-litre, twin overhead camshaft, 24 valve AJ6 engine, which was offered alongside the revamped V12. It was not to be until 1988 that the factory marketed its own covertible version of the XJ-S, thirteen years after the model first appeared.
Jaguar returned to the private sector in 1984 and, two years later, came the highly praised new XJ6 saloon. Then at the 1988 Birmingham Motor Show, the firm unveiled a superb mid-engined show stopper in the shape of the one-off Vl2-powered four-wheel-drive XJ220 supercar. Although there was talk of it entering production, by September of 1989 Sir John Egan confirmed that if it was to reach manufacturing status, it would have to be powered by the 3.5-litre twin turbo-charged V6 engine developed to replace the V12 in the firm’s group C racers. This would involve redesigning the entire car and creating an altogether smaller one. By contrast, the Jaguar F-type sports car, the E’s spiritual successor, is now said to be waiting in the wings. Intended to enter production in 1993, it is hoped that the new model will help to push Jaguar’s output from approximately 50,000 cars per annum to around the 70,000 mark.
Work on the project began in the early 1980s though did not gain momentum until after the 1986 launch of the XJ6 saloon. Working under the direction of chief stylist Geoff Lawson, Keith Helfet, who has the lines of the XJ220 to his credit, is also responsible for those of the 2 + 2 F-type which, it is thought, will be available in coupe and detachable Targa top forms (XJ41) and as a convertible (XJ42). Unofficial photographs show strong visual associations to its distinguished predecessor, with a similarly shaped air intake and nose section to those of the E-type. With an apparent overall length of 15ft lin (4.6m) and 6ft lin (1.85m) wide, the F is slightly shorter but wider than the ultimate Series III E, the respective dimensions of which were 15ft 4in (4.86m) and 5ft 6in (1.68m).
At the heart of the new car is the 4-litre version of the AJ6 engine, introduced in 1989 for the XJ6 saloon. For this reason it was fitted with a forged, rather than the 3.6-litre’s cast-iron crankshaft, for the top line 160mph (257kph) 350bhp twin turbo-charged F-type. This is used in conjunction with a four wheel drive system developed by Jaguar’s close neighbour and FWD pioneer, FF Developments. The basic and more popular version of the F-type would be offered in unturbocharged rear wheel drive form.
By mid-1989 experimental cars were being evaluated in both Italy and Britain, with ‘scoop’ photographs being published in September by Car and Autocar magazines.
Jaguar’s future was suddenly resolved on 31 October 1989, when Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Nicholas Ridley, unexpectedly revealed that the government was waiving its Golden Share in the company – which limited any individual to a fifteen per cent holding – and this had been scheduled to expire at the end of 1990. This permitted Ford – which six weeks previously had announced its intention to build up its shareholding to the permitted level – to make an attractive all-out £1.6 billion bid for Jaguar, ahead of its General Motors rival. The latter had contemplated taking a minority holding in the company and was favoured by Sir John Egan but, on 2 November, the Jaguar board of directors recommended its acceptance of the Ford offer. This was subsequently approved by the firm’s shareholders.
Jaguar today, after fifty-eight years as a British company (though a small one by international standards) is American-owned. But the reality may be that this will permit new models to be developed. The XJ200 project has been given the green light and the F-type cannot be far behind. After nearly arriving in 1970, this long-awaited sports car could take to the road nearly twenty years after its illustrious forebearer ceased production.