AUTOMOTIVE
DECEMBER 4, 2021
The Timeline Of Jaguar Car Company
The timeline of Jaguar car company, describing the history of the company as the maker of luxurious sports cars.
Jaguar is a British luxury automaker from Whitley, Coventry, England. It was founded in Blackpool, England as the Swallow Sidecar Company in 1922 by William Lyons and William Walmsley. Initially the company made motorcycle sidecars before developing bodies for passenger cars. It was renamed to SS Cars Limited.
In 1935 a sports saloon model (sports sedan) called the SS Jaguar was released, alongside the SS jaguar 100. The company name was changed from SS Cars to Jaguar Cars in 1945. The word “jaguar” comes the word “yaguar” meaning “he who kills with one leap”. It comes from the South American Tupi and Guarani languages.
Jaguar gained popularity with a series of successful sports cars such as Jaguar XK120 (1948-1954), Jaguar XK140 (1954-1957) Jaguar XK 150 (1057-1961) and Jaguar E-Type (1961-1975). Their sales’ slogan for years was “Grace, Space, Pace”.
Two of the greatest moments in Jaguar’s history in motor sport are winning the Le Mans 24 hours race in 1951 and 1953. Two more wins were added later in 1956 and 1957 with the Scottish racing team Ecurie Ecosse.
In 1966 Jaguar merged with British Motor Corporation and renamed as British Motor Holdings (BMH). It was then merged with Leyland Motor Corporation in 1968 and became British Leyland. Jaguar itself was spin off from British Leyland in 1984.
In 1999, Jaguar became part of Ford’s new Premier Automotive Group along with Aston Martin and Volvo Cars. Under Ford era Jaguar expanded its products by launching the S Type in 1999 and X Type in 2001.
On June 11, 2007 Ford announced to sell Jaguar along with Land Rover. On March 26, 2008 Ford announced that they sold the Jaguar and Land Rover business operations to Tata Motors of India. The sale was completed to Tata on June 2, 2008 at a cost of 1,7 billion GBP.
In 2013, the two Jaguar and Land Rover had fundamental restructuring. The parent company was renamed to Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC, Jaguar Cars limited was renamed to Jaguar Land Rover Limited. This company became responsible for the design, manufacture and marketing of both Jaguar and Land Rover products.
The current Jaguar car models are : E-Pace, F-Pace, F-Type, I-Pace, XE, XF and R models. In the motorsport world Jaguar has had major success particularly in the Le Mans 24 Hours with C-Type and D-Type.
In 1948 the XJ-S competing in the European Touring Car won the title followed by many series after that including the Jaguar XJR-14. In 1999, Ford bought the Stewart Grand Prix F 1 team and renamed it to Jaguar Racing for the Formula One 2000 season. But it was not a success program, as they only had two podium finishes in five seasons between 2000 and 2004. At the end of 2004 Ford sold the Jaguar F1 team to Red Bull and it became Red Bull Racing.
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