It was in 1922 that two motorcycle racers - William Lyons and William Walmsley - founded the Swallow Sidecar Company. They would build their first car, the Swallow Sidecar (or SS) Jaguar in 1935. Ten years later the company would drop the SS so as not to be associated with the German SS of World War II, and the Jaguar Car Company was born.
Jaguar made their name in the 1950s with a series of luxurious sedans sold under the Daimler marque (not to be confused with Daimler-Benz) and Le Mans winning racers. Jaguar would win the 24 Hours five times during the fifties. The following thirty or so years were not kind to Jaguar, merger after merger resulted in a weakening of the brand and its sales until the company had to be nationalized in 1975. Jaguar would be sold on the public market in 1984, and this would lead to a rebirth of the Jaguar brand.
Eager to retake their status as a leading builder of performance cars, Jaguar would introduce the newly designed XJ220 at the 1988 British Motor Show. It was a stunning new design, the fastest production car on Earth; capable of reaching 350 km/h. Sixteen years later the Top Gear TV show would race an XJ220 against an all new Pagani Zonda S. The Pagani was so technically superior that host Jeremy Clarkson commented the Jaguar looked like a “telegraph post” by comparison. The XJ had the last laugh though, winning the race handily.
Today Jaguar is known best for luxurious, high performance sedans, and since 2004 has not been involved in any form of motorsport due to cost. However 2008 would see Jaguar sold to Tata Motors of India. Since the 1950s, there have been only a handful of years in which Jaguar’s parent company has been in the black. With a profitable owner finally in place, there is no telling what Jaguar will be capable of in the future.