Like Porsche and Ferrari, Jaguar’s success was driven by one man, William Lyons. The young Lyons emerged as a "side car" maker in the. "Side car" is the additional passenger compartment attached to the side of motorcycle. Of course, that couldn’t fulfil Lyons ambition. Therefore he started building his own car based on the mass production Austin Seven or Morris but with his own chassis and body. In 1935, the stylish sports car SS100 was launched and amazed the world by its beauty and bargain price.

However, the SS was more a coach-builder car because it had engine, running gear and various parts underneath the body supplied by the mass production market. Therefore, his engineer William Heynes designed the XK engine which became the driving force of Jaguar cars for some 40 years. The 3.4-litre straight 6 employed double overhead camshaft and was capable of pumping out 160hp. It was installed to the new XK120 sports car, helping it to achieve 126mph top speed. In 1948, that was the fastest production car.
The XK120 stunned the world by its high performance out of a low price. Its good look, styled by Lyons himself, also helped attracting sales from all over the world. That fulfilled the post-war British government policy to concentrate on export. Some 12,000 units were sold until 1954, then it was upgraded to XK140 and then XK150.

Entered the 50 Jaguar also started producing saloon with the launch of Mk VII. Despite of powering by the same XK engine, the sales of big saloons were not very successful. Therefore Lyons tried a smaller saloon, then improved to Mk II. The Mk II smaller body accompaned with the powerful XK engine and classical styling won the love from car enthusiasts. Production totalled 123,000 cars and became the best selling Jaguar until XJ6. It also won touring car racesThe XK150 was succeeded by E-type in 1961. This beautiful sports car was once recorded a top speed of 150mph and was (again) the fastest production sports car then. At least 70,000 E-types left the factory until 1975, including the version with a marvellous V12 designed by Walter Hassen.

Lyons was also interested in motor racing, especially is endurance races such as Le Mans. His own team won a total of 5 Le Mans - 2 by C-type (1951, 53), 3 by D-type (1955, 56, 57). After a rest of 2 decades, the partnership with TWR won another 2 Le Mans - XJR-9LM (1988), XJR-12 (1989) - and 2 World Sports Car Championships - XJR-8 (1987) and XJR-14 (1991).

In the production side, XJ6 arrived in 1968 and its evolution still serves the company today. V12 was introduced into the saloon in 1972, the car named XJ12. During the 70 the company reputation had been declining until the revival in the mid. The retirement of Sir William Lyons in was probably one of the reasons. (He passed away in 1985) Jaguar was losing money and once absorbed by British Leyland. It resumed independence in 1984 but the new cars had already became less attractive than the Lyons era. The XJ-S of 1975 was a design disaster. The build quality and production efficiency were not improved.

Ford bought 15% stocks from Jaguar in 1989 and made a complete take over next year. A drastic cost reduction scheme cut the workforce by a third. At the same time, there were signs of revival as the partnership with Tom Walkinshaw in motor sport extended to road cars - the joint venture Jaguar Sport created two supercars, XJR-15 and XJ220.

In 1993, A new production line opened at Browns Lane and signalled the improvement of build quality. Then came the first new engine for 2 decades - the advanced AJ-V8, although it is produced in Ford engine plant. The launch of S-Type in 1998 lifted Jaguar to a position challenging BMW and Mercedes.

In 1999, Jaguar was grouped into Ford's Premier Automotive Group (PAG). Under a new expansion strategy, it got a new small Jaguar, X-Type, and entered Formula One racing. But the plan was proved to be too ambitious. The X-Type did not sell well, leading the new Halewood plant running at low capacity. The F1 team also failed to win anything. As a result, Jaguar recorded consecutive losses. In 2004, PAG decided to close one of its 3 plants, kill the F1 team and scale back the expansion plan.