THEYEARS FROM 1958 to 1966 were a period of great activity for Jaguar: many new models were launched; other businesses were acquired; sales and production were constantly expanding; and, behind the scenes, Sir William was discreetly searching for a successor for the day when he finally decided to step down and reluctantly retire.
Although cars such as the sensational E-Type and the best-selling Mark 2 range have their own stories, it was the company’s relentless expansion that governed their launch, and the ability to have them made and sold. We must therefore consider the takeovers before we can describe the new cars.
Not only did Jaguar need more space in which to build its cars, but Sir William also had ambitions to turn Jaguar into a compact automotive empire. Subject to the availability of finance (and although Jaguar was a public company, Sir William and his family still held the majority shareholding), he therefore set out on such a quest in 1960.
The same year, he bought the Daimler company from BSA; not only was Daimler a prestigious car-maker with a big factory in the Radford district of Coventry, but it was also producing single- and double-decker buses, and even military vehicles such as the Ferret armoured car. At a stroke, therefore, the Jaguar company doubled in size, with a total workforce approaching eight thousand, and it was not long before all Jaguar engine and transmission manufacture and assembly were concentrated on the Daimler site.
Next, the Wolverhampton-based truck company, Guy, was absorbed, shortly to be followed by Meadows, which specialised in making heavy commercial vehicle engines. Jaguar then considered taking over the fledgling Lotus company (which was apparently on offer, though no company took control of it for another twenty-five years), before going for one final, glamorous purchase, that of Coventry-Climax, also based in Coventry.
Although Coventry-Climax’s ‘bread and butter’ came from making forklift trucks for industry, and a variety of small industrial engines, the glamour came from its limited production of high-performance light-alloy power units – the FWA/FWE series – for sale to several small and independent car-makers such as Lotus, TVR, Turner and Cooper, and from its involvement in Formula One.
At that time Coventry-Climax F1 engines were winning at every level (particularly in Lotuses driven by Jim Clark), and although Sir William was not enthusiastic about the cost of these ventures, he welcomed the positive publicity that they brought. Furthermore, the company’s technical chief, Walter Hassan, had spent many years at Jaguar, and he was speedily brought back to Browns Lane to relieve the pressure on Bill Heynes in the engine-design department.
Only in this amibitious and corporate atmosphere could Jaguar even consider going ahead with an ambitious product expansion plan for the 1960s, and it was not surprising that there was no place for an on-going motor-sport programme within the company at the same time. In the first half of the 1960s, not only did the company launch new E-Type, Mark 2, Mark X, and spin-off models, but there were new products at Daimler (both cars and buses), work on new trucks at Guy, and a proposed joint enterprise with Cummins of the United States, makers of massive diesel engines for trucks, though this last did not come to maturity.
The original Mark I car was restyled and much improved in 1959, when it became the Mark 2, complete with different window styling, and with a wider choice of engines.
On the other hand, Coventry-Climax was gradually, but decisively, pulled out of motor sport, and would never return. Although the 1½-litre V8 continued to be a race-winning power unit in Formula One until the end of 1965, a proposed flat-sixteen replacement was not a success and was speedily cancelled.
As would eventually be revealed, the biggest design and development programme in the group at this time (and Jaguar must be considered as a group from this moment on) was to finalise what became known as the Mark 2 compact saloon, get it on sale in 1959, and then knuckle down to mould it into a vast array of derivatives. This was done in a typically pragmatic manner, first of all by Sir William completely revisiting the Mark 1 style, changing the window layout, widening the rear track, and making sure that all the existing XK engines (2.4-, 3.4- and the newly developed 3.8-litre sizes) were made available.
Although annual Jaguar sales rose above twenty thousand for the first time, this was only the beginning, for in the next few years the Mark 2 range would expand to include a Daimler version, complete with the existing Daimler V8 engine, a more advanced long-tail derivative called the S-Type, which had independent rear suspension, and finally the 420, which was even more high-tech, but with altered front-end styling.
3.8-litre-engined Mark 2s were potential race-winners all around the world in the first years of the 1960s. This machine is competing in the Tour de France.
The styling of the Mark 2 range was unmistakable. Many cars sold to export markets were equipped, like this one, with white-wall tyres and chrome wire-spoke wheels.
This, on its own, would have been enough to keep Jaguar dealerships busy all round the world (and particularly in North America, where the 125-mph 3.8-litre Mark 2 was proving to be very popular), but it was the arrival of the amazingly sleek and fast E-Type in 1961 that made the headlines. This was a car that had started out as a racing sports-car project, intended to take over from the world-famous D-Type on circuits from Le Mans to Sebring, Florida, but which had been refined, enlarged and re-engineered during development.
Now, instead of going racing, it was meant to run in the streets of the world’s cities, as the XK150 was already doing, though the E-Type now had the potential to reach nearly 150 mph, making it one of the fastest cars in the world. The original racing intent explains why it had such an advanced chassis – the combination of a multi-tubular front end, allied to a monocoque body tub, all-round independent suspension (by torsion bars at the front, and coil springs at the rear), and four-wheel disc brakes.
Although the original 3.8-litre E-Types had several problems with design, development and build quality when new, these were mostly forgiven by an adoring public, especially those in the United Kingdom, who could buy one for no more than £2,098. One motoring writer of mature years said that he knew it would be a worldwide success when he found that pretty girls started smiling at even him when he drove one.
So, when a new model was as sexy as this, what did it matter if there was not quite enough space inside the cabin (it had, after all, been shaped around the compact figure of chief test driver Norman Dewis), that the heating system was by no means state-of-the-art, or that it was possible for an early model to overheat in city traffic? The seductive, wind-tunnel-inspired shape was unlike that of any other road car, the 265-bhp engine promised colossal open-road performance, and the car was uniquely attractive, both visually and in driving appeal.
Although Sir William Lyons was justly proud of the E-Type, which was first revealed in 1961, he had little to do with the style of the car. It was partly an evolution of the D-Type’s shape, and partly the product of aerodynamic studies by his specialist, Malcolm Sayer.
When it was introduced in 1961, the E-Type was an instant sensation, for no other car in the world offered looks like this, and a top speed of nearly 150 mph, at such a low price.
The E-Type, particularly in fixed-head coupé form, looked stunning from any angle, especially from overhead.
Like the XKs that had gone before it, the E-Type outsold all its makers’ original forecasts and was soon selling at the rate of five to six thousand cars a year. Open-top, fast-back coupé and even stretched 2+2 versions were all available, making the cars irresistible. All versions of the E-Type would remain on the market for fifteen years, and more than 72,000 would be sold.
With the E-Type and the Mark 2 making the headlines, it was surprising that Jaguar found time to replace the long-running Mark VII/VIII/IX range in 1961 with the massive unit-construction Mark X. As a direct replacement for the old car, this was a huge machine intended to appeal to export markets (and particularly to North America), which explains why it ran on a 120-inch wheelbase and was both wider and longer than any Jaguar produced before or since.
Even though Bill Heynes’s engineers did their best to mix and match the running gear from everything else that was coming along in other new Jaguars – the Mark X used the same engine as the E-Type, and the same independent rear suspension as the E-Type and the forthcoming S-Type saloon – it was the colossal bodyshell (for this was a true six-seater) that made it unique in Britain. Sir William had spent so long on working up the styling of this car, which had originally been intended as a Mark IX, that it became known as the ‘Mark Time’ by his staff (though never to his face) before it finally made its way through the workshops. Nevertheless, it was as elegant as current trends, and his sales staff’s recommendations, would allow.
The Mark X, Jaguar’s largest ever car, was introduced in 1961. Here is a line-up of the cars, waiting to be completed at Browns Lane.
By 1963 the company had spent so much on new model development that for the next few seasons at least it would have to rely on improvements, and ‘gap-filling’, rather than innovation, to keep up the demand. Production soon topped out at about 25,000, of which ten thousand cars were exported, about four thousand of those going to North America. Even so, Jaguar watchers had to stay alert if they were to keep up with the changes brought in, seemingly every year, until the mid-1960s.
This Mark X is posed in front of the Forth Road Bridge in Scotland.
First, Sir William had to sort out what he had inherited at Daimler. Not only was there the challenge of turning the oddly styled new SP250 sports car into a reliable product (with a glass-fibre body, which was none too rigid, there were build-quality issues to be resolved), but a new flagship model, the 4½-litre V8-engined Majestic Major, had to be marketed. Most important of all was that a Jaguar-based saloon, the 2½-litre, complete with a neat and powerful 140-bhp 2.5-litre V8 engine, was also put on sale, this becoming the first Daimler to be assembled in the main Jaguar factory. The larger Daimler V8 engine was also tested in Jaguar’s Mark X saloon, which proved to be even faster than had been hoped, but, as it was not an engine that could be produced in large quantities, that particular project had to be dropped.
In the meantime, Sir William and his technical chief, Bill Heynes, carried on wringing every possible advantage out of their big investment in existing models. First was the arrival of the S-Type, which, although closely based on the Mark 2 saloon, featured a lengthened and rather squared-up tail, coil-spring independent rear suspension like that of the E-Type, the larger of the XK engines, and a more completely kitted-out interior. This car carried on alongside the Mark 2 for the next five years.
Next came the launch of several evolutionary models that benefited from two major mechanical developments: the 4.2-litre XK engine (this was to be the final ‘stretch’ of a much-loved power unit), and an all-synchromesh manual gearbox. Both had been under development at Browns Lane for some time, and both would bring real improvement to the cars to which they were applied: in 4.2-litre form, not only was the latest and still maturing E-Type a better and more flexible machine than before, but so was the Mark X saloon.
The big engine would not immediately find a home in the Mark 2 and S-Type saloons, though the gearboxes would, as Sir William had more innovation in mind for Jaguar’s near future. Not only did he spend ages styling the third, and final, derivative of the Mark 2, the 420, for launch in 1966, but he also approved the launch of a bigger, longer-wheelbase, ‘family’ E-Type – the 2+2.
Clearly this was a strategy that worked, for Jaguar’s annual production was now approaching thirty thousand, more cars were now being exported than were staying at home, and Sir William was actively looking to secure his succession, and the future of his company. Suddenly, in 1966, he astonished everyone – even, it is said, his closest colleagues, to whom he did not confide his strategy – by announcing that he would merge the Jaguar Group with the British Motor Corporation (BMC). This, the foundation of British Motor Holdings, was the start of the process that led to the birth of British Leyland in 1968.
Even after its final restyling, the XJS was still selling well, and needed only high-quality advertising to keep it in the public eye.