Jaguar Saloon Cars - 1st Edition (Paul Skileter)

By Paul Skilleter with competition chapters by Andrew Whyte,

Hardbound, 602 Pages, ISBN: 0854292632, 1st Edition, 1980 - Second Hand copy in good condition.

The year is 1920 and the dust of the Great War has hardly settled. Yet William Walmsley, the entrepreneurial son of a Stockport coal merchant, has realised that there is a good living to be made by renovating war-surplus Triumph motorcycles and selling them to a public with an insatiable appetite for personal transport. Little could William Walmsley have realised the importance of the chain of events he had unwittingly set in motion – for this was the very beginning of Jaguar...

Soon Walmsley had designed a radically styled sidecar to enhance the appeal of the machines he was selling. This was followed by a move to Blackpool where the link with a young William Lyons was forged, when the two men formed the Swallow Sidecar Company on a bank overdraft of £1000.
Lyons, a man of extraordinary ability, drive and imagination, was to stamp an indelible mark on the company during the transition from the Swallow Sidecar Company through S.S. to Jaguar as we know it today.
"Grace-Space-Pace" was the sales slogan used for many years by Jaguar to describe the qualities of their saloon cars. Not many phrases conjured-up by advertising men are as accurate as this, for Jaguars have always had a quality of line and concept setting them apart from other marques. At the start of the 1980s, a real appreciation of these qualities has ensured that the Jaguar saloons of the past are recognised as the classic cars they really are by an ever-growing number of enthusiasts. Indeed many of these wonderful cars are in the process of restoration, while good examples are appreciating in value almost daily.
Jaguar Saloon Cars is a companion to Paul Skilleter's other highly successful and award winning book Jaguar Sports Cars and covers the full history of these beautiful saloons from preS.S. days. This is not only an incredible story of private enterprise and powerful personalities, but is first a comprehensive record of every S.S. and Jaguar saloon model ever made.