Jaguar Through the Years

October 19th 1955 at the Earls Court Motor Show was where it all started, Jaguar had started production of the Mark 1 and this was a huge step for the British car-maker. This was the first Jaguar model to enter the lucrative small car luxury market. In the fifties, there was money in saloon vehicles, this style of model outsold roadsters meaning making the Mark 1 was a no-brainer. Scribes of the day called the Mk1 a great driver’s car and it was no slouch either as you could opt for a 2.5-litre engine or even more powerful 3.4-litre power plant. From the off, two models were offered on the Jaguar Mark 2 range, a Standard car and a Special Equipment trim priced from £1,269 and £1,298 respectively. The extra £29 did not put many buyers off, in fact the flagship Special Equipment was the best-selling car. The larger 3.4-litre engine was a great success in the export market, particularly in the USA where powerful engines were all the rage. Producing 210bhp, this meant the 3.4-litre unit was quick in a straight line, perfect for the North American market.

Jaguar would not have realised how important the E-Type would become, however, even in the sixties, the journalists, the designers and the British engineers knew they had made a good car – they just didn’t know they had made one of the most iconic cars ever to be produced. The E-Type has been good and bad for Jaguar – it has been the model that Jaguar should have been able to recreate – until recently the big cat went round and round in circles but then came the F-Type – the E-Type for the modern era. At last Jaguar can now look back with pride but look forward with eagerness and enthusiasm.

The Jaguar E-Type started out with a 3.8-litre six-cylinder engine and this was increased to a larger 4.2-litre unit in 1964. The E-Type is a glorious, beautiful design, the curves are in the right places and this model is a sought after car.

In fact it is so sought after, that Jaguar has confirmed that it will hand-build six all-aluminium lightweight E-Type models by its heritage team, part of the JLR Special Vehicle Operations team – the cars will be built to the exact specification of the original cars – the legend lives on.

Introduced in 1966, the 420 was first unveiled at the London Motor Show at Earls Court. This was the British manufacturer’s flagship saloon in its day, a compact sporting saloon to be reckoned with. If you know your Jaguar cars then you will know that the 420 was a facelifted version of the much-loved Mark 2. Another thing, don’t mix the 420 up with the 420G as this was a variation of the Mark X. Under the bonnet, the Jaguar 420 was powered by a 4.2-litre petrol engine. This power plant was taken from the XK and proved to be a successful choice for many Jaguar owners. The 420 followed the Mark 2 theme but it was its own car in its own right. September 1968 was the death knell for the 420 model and Jaguar was taken over by Britain’s largest car company, British Leyland Motor Company – a new dawn had arrived and Jaguar was on the up again. Another big success was just around the corner…

Surely, the XJ Series 1 is one of the most significant cars in Jaguar’s history. Just like the E-Type, the design was beautiful, the lines were glorious and to be honest the XJ looks just as good as it did in 1968, in fact it possibly looks even better – the design well, seem timeless. Like the E-type, the XJ was a car that was seemingly irreplaceable – with that in mind it remained in production until 1992 albeit in various guises and names, however, delve deeper and you will find much of that original car in Series II and Series III. When car makers make iconic vehicles it can be very hard for the public to let go – the XJ just like the E-Type sports car was one of these vehicles. Eventually Jaguar realised that it would have to redefine the model if it was to have further success. When you need a car to move on designers must be bold and grab the bull by the horns. Fast-forward to 2015 and you can still see design cues from the original car but today’s model is a car for 2015 and that is the point. The retro-modern look is what people want and if Jaguar can continue to give customers this kind of package then it will be in a win-win position.

Remember the late eighties and the early nineties, the supercar was all the rage – there were cars like the Ferrari F40, the Lamborghini Countach and of course us Brits had our very own hypercar – the Jaguar XJ220. The Jaguar XJ220 was so revered that it had its very own race game. Yes that game was available on the most popular computers of the day, the Amiga 500 Plus, the XJ220 was released in 1992 and was one of the top-selling racing games of the period.

Back to the XJ220, the car was epic. It could reach 217mph as it was powered by twin-turbocharged 3.5-litre V6 engine producing 540bhp. It looked like it should have been in a Hollywood movie, such was the futuristic design and at one point it was the fastest production car on the planet. Jaguar had made a car of epic proportions, this model was, well what can we say, outstanding, spectacular, glorious and above all a treasure in a time when every maker was pumping out supercars of note.

With looks like these you would be forgiven for thinking that this version of the XK8 is much more modern than it actually is. Nearly twenty years old, the design is what manufacturers call timeless and this is in a good way.

Don’t be mistaken, the svelte looks in no way mean that this car is a sports coupe, no siree this is a grand tourer in every way. It is a pleasure to cover long distances in, but it is not agile enough to make the most out of mountain passes and twisty B roads.

The hot XK – the XKR was featured extensively in the James Bond movie, ‘Die Another Day’ – unfortunately for Britain best-loved fictional spy, the Jaguar was driven by bad guy Zao and the news got worse as the car was equipped a tad like Bond’s gadget cars with gatling gun, thermal imaging capabilities, mortar bombs, rockets under the front grille, miniature missiles hidden in the door, and front ramming spikes. The chase on the ice between Bond and Zao in an Aston Martin Vanquish and the Jaguar XKR was a truly gripping scene and the Jaguar shone as one of the stars of the show.

A long held ambition is to go toe-to-toe with the likes of BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi in the executive saloon market. Jaguar launched the X-Type with this very aim in mind but it never quite got the foothold it needed to be a success. Don’t get us wrong, the X-Type was a good car but it almost had one arm tied behind its back from the off as its diesel range was not wide enough to tempt business drivers out of the German cars it so badly wanted to beat. The styling on the X-Type was also safe, there were few wow features to get you going but if you did get beyond then you would have been impressed with the drive. The X-Type was nimble and agile and it offered exceptional ride comfort – it was right up there with Mercedes when it came to the smooth drive, however, it didn’t quite offer the sharpness of a BMW 3 Series. It received a hefty facelift in 2008 receiving larger bumpers giving it more road presence, but for many it was still some way off the German big three, if the X-Type was being marked on a school report it would have read something like, good effort but can do better.

Think of ride comfort and what do you come up with, Rolls Royce, Mercedes-Benz S Class and of course the Jaguar XJ. The XJ is a marvelous combination of comfort and high performance – it really is the all-round package. You can drive it in a sensible fashion and enjoy your surroundings or feather the accelerator and you have a bundle of power to play with. This version of the XJ was very different from the previous generation but then it had to be – it’s like the old saying we need to move on – and Jaguar did. It kept the coupe look but with it came more modern design cues, a better chassis and more powerful and of course more efficient engines. The body was built using aluminium meaning that it kept weight down – not only did this mean good for the running costs, it also meant the XJ now handled so much better than before. On the inside, the XJ was a classy cabin, you felt important surrounded by high quality materials at every touch while it offered state-of-the-art technology for its day including large screen instrument panel that came in high definition.

By the time the F-Type was introduced, Tata the owner had been involved for quite a few years. What it had done at Land Rover with the Evoque and the Range Rover was nothing short of spectacular – could it do it with Jaguar? Could Jaguar really produce a modern interpretation of the E-Type? And so it was, the F-Type was launched to critical acclaim, the Jaguar brand was not purring, it was roaring. The F-Type exploded on to the scene and at last Jaguar had a true sports car, and yes this is easily the best sports car the maker has made since the famous E-Type.

Offering the F-Type in both hard and soft-top was important as it opened up the market for the brand. On the road the Jaguar is a special bit of kit, it comes with first class engineering and you can feel this out on the open road. It is nimble and agile but my, it is a quick car.

It may have taken a long time for Jaguar to build a true sports car in the same vein of the E-Type but my-oh-my, it has certainly been worth the wait.

As Jaguar got to the late ‘naughties’ they were in a real crossroad as a brand. Manufacturers which required a more acquired taste, like MG and Saab, were dying off and premium manufacturers were having to drop the prices and up the units produced to keep their appeal. The X-Type and S-Type saloons needed cutting off. In 2007 Jaguar launched the first XF and it did a solid job of changing people's perceptions of the brand, but the real change came in the second generation of the XF in 2015. Loaded with the award-winning Ingenium Diesel and Petrol engines, the second generation came at a time where Jaguar Land Rover was releasing models like the jaw-dropping F-Type and Range Rover Evoque while also the promising F-Pace SUV was in development. The XF was the car that brought the Jaguar brand up to date and into the future, proudly flaunting the new design cues that would make it Britain’s biggest manufacturer.

We have mentioned on several occasions Jaguar’s ambition to go toe-to-toe with the German brands, it has for decades wanted a model that would compete in the same sector as the BMW 3 Series and the Mercedes C Class. Just like the F-Type sports car, this executive saloon model has been on the cards for quite some time. Jaguar never quite got it right with the X-Type but this XE paints a different picture. This is the real deal. It has been launched with the correct mix of engines and is an attractive fleet proposition. To emphasise the importance of getting the right figures, Jaguar has built the car from aluminium meaning that it will have emissions from as little as 99g/km of CO2. It’s quick too, the flagship model powered by the 3.0-litre V6 petrol engine can complete the benchmark sprint in 4.9 seconds and is mated to an eight-speed automatic gearbox. With prices starting at £33,240, Jaguar has at last a car in the executive market that can become a true champion. 

In 2016, Jaguar entered unknown territories to attempt what has proved to be a huge success in the form of their Jaguar F-PACE. The company's first ever SUV model which embodies the styling and behavioural traits of the Jaguar brand but in a much bigger, practical and imposing package. It's not just a car to be cruised around in though, the F-PACE is a sports SUV that can be hauled at real pace while remaining composed and well mannered in the corners. By August 2016 the F-PACE had already become Jaguars fastest selling model... ever.

10 years prior to the release of the E-PACE, the compact SUV market simply blew up. People were ditching their large hatchbacks and family saloons in favour of the taller, more substantial SUVs which were generally safer and far more affordable than in previous generations. Following the huge success of the F-PACE, it was only a matter of time before a smaller SUV came from the Jaguar brand. It has been praised as being the best-handling and most dynamic car in its class, even though it’s relatively expensive with the starting price at £43,220. The E-PACE is also being credited for having the most delightful interior of the whole Jaguar range, excluding the XJ limousine, which is surprising as it’s not the most expensive car in their lineup, not even close.

In 2018 Jaguar launched the car that will accelerate the brand into the future. The I-PACE went on sales as Jaguars first-ever all-electric car and its a milestone model for the manufacturer. Jaguar didn’t rush into this. They know that dipping their toe into the murky waters of electric vehicles would be a waste of time unless their offering was capable of they would be asking their customers to make significant compromises. Happily, Jaguar waited until they could launch an I-PACE with a whole 300 miles of electric range. Jaguar also jumped on the ever-expanding SUV bandwagon, knowing that too would be a catalyst for interest. Lastly, Jaguar knew they had to make the car desirable and they achieved this thanks to the stunning exterior design, the wonderfully luxurious interior and of course by providing exceptional performance. The I-PACE will do the 0-60mph spring in just 4.5 seconds making it one of the fastest cars that the brand sells… and it just happens to be powered by electricity. 

The I-PACE is on sale now and prices start from £69,995.