The art of performance
Jaguar
Tagline
Net Worth
$5,000,000,000
Started in (City)
Started in (Country)
United Kingdom
Incorporation Date
26th December, 1933
Bankruptcy Date
-
Founders
- William Lyson
About
Jaguar Cars is a brand of automobiles made by Jaguar Land Rover, the luxury vehicle brand of Jaguar Land Rover, a British multinational car manufacturer with its headquarters in Whitley, Coventry, England. Jaguar Cars were the company that was responsible for the production of Jaguar cars until its operations were fully merged with those of Land Rover to form Jaguar Land Rover on 1 January 2013.
Jaguar’s business was founded as the Swallow Sidecar Company in 1922, originally making motorcycle sidecars before developing bodies for passenger cars. Under the ownership of S. S. Cars Limited, the business extended to complete cars made in association with Standard Motor Co, many bearing Jaguar as a model name. The company’s name was changed from S. S. Cars to Jaguar Cars in 1945. A merger with the British Motor Corporation followed in 1966, the resulting enlarged company now being renamed as British Motor Holdings (BMH), which in 1968 merged with Leyland Motor Corporation and became British Leyland, itself to be nationalized in 1975.
Beginning
Jaguar was a private company until it became part of the British Motor Corporation in 1966. The new company was called British Motor Holdings. In 1968 that company joined with Leyland Motors to became British Leyland. In 1975 British Leyland was nationalized. Jaguar was spun off from British Leyland and was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1984. In 1984 Jaguar was made private again by Margaret Thatcher. Ford bought Jaguar in 1989. Becoming a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index until it was acquired by Ford in 1990. In 1999 it was made part of Ford's "Premier Automotive Group" along with Aston Martin, Land Rover, Volvo, and Lincoln. In 2008, Ford sold Jaguar and Land Rover to Tata Motors. Jaguar is now a brand of the merged company called Jaguar Land Rover (JLR).
The company was originally in Blackpool but moved to Coventry. Today Jaguar automobiles are made at the JLR factory in Castle Bromwich in Birmingham. In late 2018 opened a new plant in Slovakia.
Jaguar owns the Daimler brand (not Daimler-Benz). Jaguar bought the British Daimler Company in 1960. Daimler became a brand for some of Jaguar's saloon automobiles but is not used now.
Road to Success
Jaguar has, in recent years, manufactured cars for the British Prime Minister, the most recent delivery being an XJ in May 2010. The company also holds royal warrants from Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles.
Ford owned Jaguar Cars, also buying Land Rover in 2000, until 2008 when it sold both to Tata Motors. Tata created Jaguar Land Rover as a subsidiary holding company. At an operating company level, in 2013 Jaguar Cars was merged with Land Rover to form Jaguar Land Rover Limited as the single design, manufacture, sales company, and brand owner for both Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles.
Since the Ford ownership era, Jaguar and Land Rover have used joint design facilities in engineering centers at Whitley in Coventry and Gaydon in Warwickshire and Jaguar cars have been assembled in plants at Castle Bromwich and Solihull.
The Swallow Sidecar Company was founded in 1922 by two motorcycle enthusiasts, William Lyons and William Walmsley. In 1934 Walmsley elected to sell-out and to buy the Swallow business (but not the company which was liquidated) Lyons formed S.S. Cars Limited, finding new capital by issuing shares to the public. Jaguar first appeared in September 1935 as a model name on an SS 2½-litre sports saloon. A matching open two-seater sports model with a 3½-litre engine was named SS Jaguar 100.
On 23 March 1945, the S. S. Cars shareholders in general meeting agreed to change the company’s name to Jaguar Cars Limited. Said chairman William Lyons "Unlike S. S. the name Jaguar is distinctive and cannot be connected or confused with any similar foreign name."
Though five years of pent-up demand ensured plenty of buyers, production was hampered by the shortage of materials, particularly steel, issued to manufacturers until the 1950s by a central planning authority under strict government control. Jaguar sold Motor Panels, a pressed steel body manufacturing company bought in the late 1930s, to steel and components manufacturer Rubery Owen, and Jaguar bought from John Black’s Standard Motor Company the plant where Standard built Jaguar’s six-cylinder engines. From this time Jaguar was entirely dependent for their bodies on external suppliers, in particular then independent Pressed Steel and in 1966 that carried them into BMC, BMH, and British Leyland.
Jaguar made its name by producing a series of successful eye-catching sports cars, the Jaguar XK120 (1948–54), Jaguar XK140 (1954–57), Jaguar XK150 (1957–61), and Jaguar E-Type (1961–75), all embodying Lyons’ mantra of "value for money". The sports cars were successful in international motorsport, a path followed in the 1950s to prove the engineering integrity of the company’s products.
Jaguar’s sales slogan for years was "Grace, Space, Pace", a mantra epitomized by the record sales achieved by the MK VII, IX, Mks I and II saloons, and later the XJ6. During the time this slogan was used, but the exact text varied.
The core of Bill Lyons’ success following WWII was the twin-cam straight-six engine, conceived pre-war and realized while engineers at the Coventry plant were dividing their time between fire-watching and designing the new power plant. It had a hemispherical cross-flow cylinder head with valves inclined from the vertical; originally at 30 degrees (inlet) and 45 degrees (exhaust) and later standardized to 45 degrees for both inlet and exhaust.
As fuel octane ratings were relatively low from 1948 onwards, three piston configurations were offered: domed (high octane), flat (medium octane), and dished (low octane).
The main designer, William "Bill" Heynes, assisted by Walter "Wally" Hassan, was determined to develop the Twin OHC unit. Bill Lyons agreed over misgivings from Hassan. It was risky to take what had previously been considered a racing or low-volume and cantankerous engine needing constant fettling and apply it to reasonable volume production saloon cars.
The subsequent engine (in various versions) was the mainstay powerplant of Jaguar, used in the XK 120, Mk VII Saloon, Mk I and II Saloons, and XK 140 and 150. It was also employed in the E Type, itself a development from the race-winning and Le Mans conquering C and D Type Sports Racing cars refined as the short-lived XKSS, a road-legal D-Type.
Few engine types have demonstrated such ubiquity and longevity: Jaguar used the Twin OHC XK Engine, as it came to be known, in the Jaguar XJ6 saloon from 1969 through 1992, and employed in a J60 variant as the power plant in such diverse vehicles as the British Army’s Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance (Tracked) family of vehicles, as well as the Fox armored reconnaissance vehicle, the Ferret Scout Car, and the Stonefield four-wheel-drive all-terrain lorry. Properly maintained, the standard production XK Engine would achieve 200,000 miles of useful life.
Two of the proudest moments in Jaguar’s long history in motorsport involved winning the Le Mans 24 hours race, firstly in 1951 and again in 1953. Victory at the 1955 Le Mans was overshadowed by it being the occasion of the worst motorsport accident in history. Later in the hands of the Scottish racing team Ecurie Ecosse two more wins were added in 1956 and 1957.
Despite such a performance orientation, it was always Lyons’ intention to build the business by producing world-class sporting saloons in larger numbers than the sports car market could support. Jaguar secured financial stability and a reputation for excellence with a series of elegantly styled luxury saloons that included the 3-liter and 3½ liter cars, the Mark VII, VIII, and IX, the compact Mark I and 2, and the XJ6 and XJ12. All were deemed very good values, with comfortable rides, good handling, high performance, and great style.
Combined with the trend-setting XK 120, XK 140, and XK 150 series of the sports car and nonpareil E-Type, Jaguar’s elan as a prestige motorcar manufacturer had few rivals. The company’s post-War achievements are remarkable, considering both the shortages that drove Britain (the Ministry of Supply still allocated raw materials) and the state of metallurgical development of the era.
Jaguar weighed on Land Rover’s success while Ford owned the two brands and Jaguar’s troubles look to have returned. Just as Ford failed to successfully expand Jaguar’s lineup with the X-Type midsize sedan, JLR has also failed to succeed with either the XE or the bigger XF, despite both using a bespoke, rear-wheel-drive aluminum platform that helped them at least match the dynamic abilities of their BMW equivalents. XE sales were down 22 percent through October 2018 to 26,218 while demand for the XF slipped 20 percent to 27,872, according to JLR figures.
Despite that, Jaguar is shifting around four times the volume that it had when Tata first took over, mainly because of the F-Pace and the recently launched E-Pace SUVs. Ominously, however, global sales of the brand’s best-selling F-Pace fell 25 percent through October, suggesting the E-Pace is cannibalizing some of its sister model's sale.
Challenges
The decision took in April 2018 to lay off 1000 contract staff out of a total 40,000 workforce may be a disaster for those affected but, on the face of it, it does not signal serious structural issues for Jaguar Land Rover’s business. Although JLR has expanded at pace since its near-death experience after the credit crunch a decade ago, it was facing a downturn in its fortunes.
In the year to September 2012, JLR sold 269,000 cars worldwide. In the year to March 2018, it sold 614,300. That’s impressive growth and backed by an expanded model line-up including strong sellers such as the Range Rover Velar and the F-Pace, Jaguar’s first SUV.
The top-line results for the fiscal year to March 2018 didn’t look too bad, and in fact, represent a growth of 1.7%. However, the problem for the company lied in a marked fall-off in sales over the past six months of some of its most profitable volume models. It’s a fall-off that was most noticeable since the beginning of the year and showed no sign of slowing till March. Overall, JLR sales fell 3.8% year-on-year between January and March. But in March alone, sales were down 7.8%.
The company’s biggest issue was the UK market, where sales were down 21% in the first three months of the year and a worrying 26% in March alone. Sales in Europe were down nearly 12% between January and March. Across the rest of the world, however, company sales continue to grow. China, JLR’s second-biggest market so far that year, was up 11%. Officially, the company blames its UK woes on consumer uncertainty over the future of diesel and the effect of Brexit.
According to figures from research company JATO, in the first quarter of 2018, the share of UK diesel sales fell to just 33%, down from a peak of 49% in 2014. With diesel accounting for 94% of Land Rover’s sales in 2017, that it was certainly going to hit the brand hard. Jaguar and Land Rover both offer petrol engines, so there should be little to stop JLR from following the trend away from diesel.
But it also seemed likely that JLR will face some very strong new competition, especially given the lack of hybrid drivetrains in its smaller cars.
One sales snapshot from JATO showed that across 27 European markets in February 2018, Alfa Romeo sold 2204 Stelvio SUVs against 1346 of the Jaguar F-Pace. Alfa sold a modest 41,000 Giulias globally in 2017 but it seemed likely that this is having an effect on Jaguar XE and XF sales, chasing the same kind of keen driver who wants a rear-driven car that isn’t German.
Revived Alfa was nibbling away at Jaguar, it also seemed highly likely that Volvo’s new-generation products were proving a headache for Land Rover. Although the Range Rover Evoque has been a runaway success since it was launched in 2011, it was now relatively old and Volvo’s XC40, which is in its first year of sales, was providing hot competition.
Early in April, Volvo UK boasted that the XC40 was its most successful new-car launch yet and that the compact SUV was selling 2000 units a month in the UK alone. Likewise, the Volvo XC60 was selling prolifically in Europe, outpacing the rival Land Rover Discovery Sport. In February, the XC60 accounted for 5285 sales across Europe alone, nearly outselling the Audi Q5.
As far as hybrid drivetrains are concerned, JLR was behind the pack, perhaps because the past years were consumed by getting its home-grown petrol and diesel Ingenium engine family into production. But the next 18 months proved crucial. Plans for a hybrid-petrol drivetrain based on a three-cylinder Ingenium engine were revealed at a briefing in September 2015. This set-up uses a compact electric motor sandwiched between the narrow engine and the transmission.
The unit was likely to make its debut in the nose of the second-generation Evoque, and then find its way into a facelifted Discovery Sport in 2019. Jaguar was also running 1.5-liter-engine XE prototypes, but it’s not known whether this is a standard turbo unit designed to offer a low-CO2 petrol alternative to diesel or another hybrid derivative.
JLR was challenged ahead, with significantly stronger SUV competition the most serious. Sales of the Range Rover Sport and Range Rover would improve after this recent model change. Slow sales of the Discovery 5 in Europe (just 691 units in February) remained tricky and many rides on a strong reception for the new Evoque and the new petrol performance and ‘eco’ versions of the XE and XF. The E-Pace was also likely to sell briskly and the I-Pace EV would significantly boost Jaguar’s brand presence. But after a decade of good news, JLR found expansion to building one million cars a year a fair deal tougher.
Failures
Jaguar weighed on Land Rover’s success while Ford owned the two brands and Jaguar’s troubles look to have returned. Just as Ford failed to successfully expand Jaguar’s lineup with the X-Type midsize sedan, JLR has also failed to succeed with either the XE or the bigger XF, despite both using a bespoke, rear-wheel-drive aluminum platform that helped them at least match the dynamic abilities of their BMW equivalents. XE sales were down 22 percent through October 2018 to 26,218 while demand for the XF slipped 20 percent to 27,872, according to JLR figures.
Despite that, Jaguar is shifting around four times the volume that it had when Tata first took over, mainly because of the F-Pace and the recently launched E-Pace SUVs. Ominously, however, global sales of the brand’s best-selling F-Pace fell 25 percent through October, suggesting the E-Pace is cannibalizing some of its sister model’s sales.
China became JLR’s biggest market in 2017, accounting for 146,399 sales, according to company figures. The Range Rover Evoque was the first model produced at the Changshu plant when it opened in 2014. The Land Rover Discovery Sport along with the long-wheelbase versions of the Jaguar XE and XF sedans followed. The Jaguar E-Pace is poised to be the next model made in China.
JLR Chief Financial Officer Ken Gregor told analysts during the company’s second-quarter results call in November 2018, that China has driven the sharp deterioration in profits. "It’s the single biggest challenge,” he said. JLR’s sales slumped 44 percent in China during the quarter, a collapse that Gregor blamed on falling consumer confidence and import tariff changes. In response, JLR dramatically cut production to reduce the resulting buildup of unsold cars, both in the UK and at its joint-venture plant in Changshu, near Shanghai. “Changshu has basically been closed for most of October,” Gregor said.
China’s downgrade to JLR’s fourth-largest global market, based on its 10-month figures, marks the end of the country being JLR’s cash machine. At one point, JLR was making 60,000 pounds of profit on each Range Rover SUV is sold in China, Bernstein analyst Max Warburton estimated. “Company profitability was too narrowly dependent on China,” Warburton told Automotive News Europe. “It papered over a lot of cracks elsewhere.”
Achievements
- JAGUAR I-PACE wins unprecedented treble at 2019 WORLD CAR AWARDS , I-PACE is the first model ever to win three World Car titles in the 15-year history of the awards.
- In 2017 – Jaguar has also been named World Green Car.
- JAGUAR LAND ROVER’S MIKE CROSS won AUTOCAR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT Award (2019)
Subsidies
- Tata Motors
- Jaguar Land Rover India
- Chery Jaguar Land Rover
- Jaguar Land Rover Limited
- Jaguar Land Rover Holdings Limited
CEOs
- Thierry Bolloré
- Ralf Speth