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ABOUT JAGUAR

Jaguar Cars is a British automobile manufacturer. Founded in 1922 as the Swallow Sidecar Company by William Lyons, it was renamed Jaguar in 1935. The company is owned by the Ford Motor Company. Jaguar is known for its luxury saloons and sports cars, market segments it has been in since the 1930s.

The company was independent until it became part of the nationally-owned British Motor Corporation in 1966.

In 1984 it was floated as a separate company on the stock market -- one of the Thatcher government's many privatizations -- only to be taken over by Ford in 1989-1990. In 1999 it was made part of Ford's new Premier Automotive Group along with Aston Martin, Land Rover, Volvo and Lincoln.

The company was originally located in Blackpool but re-located to Coventry to be at the heart of the British motor industry. Today factories are at Browns Lane in Coventry, Castle Bromwich in Birmingham and Halewood in Liverpool.

Jaguar owns the Daimler car company (not to be confused with Daimler-Benz), which it bought in 1960. Daimler is now little more than a brand name for Jaguar's most luxurious saloons.

Of the saloons, the most significant is the XJ6 (1968-1992), still the definitive Jaguar car for many. Since then the XJ6 has had major new models in 1986 (overlapping with the old model for several years), 1994 and 2002. The drive to bring in smaller, more popular models has been met by the smaller S-Type (1999- ) and the smaller still X-Type (2001- ).

There have been several significant sports cars: the XK120 (1948-1954), E-Type (1961-1975), the XJS (1975-1996), and XK8 (1996- ) are the main post-war models. JaguarSport: XJ220 (1988) and the racing XJR15.