The Jaguar E-Type (UK) or XK-E (US) is a British automobile created by Jaguar amid 1961 and 1975. Its blend of good looks, high performance, and aggressive pricing established the automobile as an icon of 1960s motoring. A glorious success for Jaguar, over 70000 E-Types were sold during its lifetime.
One of the world’s most noted sports motor cars, the Jaguar E-type,turned 50 in 2011. The motorcar caused a stir when it was launched at the Geneva motor exhibition in 1961, and it still does so to this day.
The E-Type was a marvel from the date it was begun. Hardly any could reckon an automobile this good-looking was British. And, of course, it was fast and was priced at a just-about-obtainable-dream price of?2,000.
From the early 1960s, the historic image of the draughty and uncomfortable sports car was dying. Even budget models were improving in terms of relaxation and convenience. Nonetheless, by present-day standards they might seem archaic. There were in effect three versions of sports auto for sale in the 60s: mini, cheap sports automobiles such as the Triumph Spitfire, Austin-Healey Sprite, or MG Midget; medium-sized cars, still cramped by modern cars: the Triumph TR4/5, MGB and Sunbeam Alpine; and snappy, powerful and expensive machinery, beginning with the Austin-Healey 3000 and E-Type Jaguar. A person picking a classic automobile all these years later would need to decide on one of these three groups and pick an automobile from them.
The E-Type was exceptional. It was a by-product of the mathematical and engineering ability of Malcolm Sayer and became the first large-scale assembly car based on aircraft basics.
Malcolm Sayer
Born in Cromer, Norfolk, UK, Sayer was educated at Great Yarmouth Grammar School (where his dad taught Maths and Art) and subsequently at the then Loughborough College. He worked for the Bristol Aeroplane Business in the middle of the Second World War, which kept him from induction by way of reserved occupation care. Following the war he wedded Pat Morgan in 1947, then went to work in Iraq in 1948.
He came back to the UK in 1950 and joined Jaguar in 1951. Some of his precise contributions were the inclusion of slide rule and seven-figure log tables to work out formulae he invented for drawing curves, work which is now undertaken by complex cad software.
History of Jaguar
Jaguar Cars Limited, also known purely as Jaguar, is a British luxury car builder, headquartered in Whitley, Coventry, England. It is a fully owned branch of the Indian firm Tata Motors Ltd. and is run as section of the Jaguar Land Rover business.
Jaguar was created as the Swallow Sidecar Corporation by Sir William Lyons in 1922, initially constructing motorcycle sidecars before advancing into passenger motor cars. The name was modified to Jaguar after ww2 due to the unwanted connotations of the SS initials (The SS was formed in 1925 as an individual care guard unit for Adolf Hitler). Following a merging with the British Motor Corporation in 1968, latterly subsumed by Leyland, which itself was later nationalised as British Leyland, Jaguar was catalogued on the London Stock Exchange in 1984, and became a part of the FTSE 100 Index until it was acquired by Ford in 1989. Jaguar has, in recent years, constructed motor cars for the Prime Minister, the most current one being of a XJ variety on 11 May 2010. The company also holds Royal Warrants from HM Queen Elizabeth II and HRH Prince Charles.
