Sir William Lyons on Jaguar

ROle of the specialist car

I have often been asked how Jaguar managed to produce their cars at such competitive prices. We have irrefutable evidence that the enquirers also accept that they represent good value and, in reality we are striving to achieve both targets – good value and competitive prices. The answer lies in what I would term a straightforward business approach – firstly, the design and development of a product capable of generating a high consumer demand, secondly, the manufacturing of the product in volume and in the most economic way and, thirdly, the provision of a good follow-up service. I would add that, in Jaguar, we have always tried to run our organisation as economically as possible and to purchase our components at the best possible price consistent with the standards of quality. Above all, we have concentrated exclusively on a specific sector of the car market and aimed at providing complete coverage of that sector through a combination of models produced in quantity. Over the years, this has enabled us to justify the expenditure of very large sums of money indeed, in terms of machinery and tooling, knowing that the products of this investment could be utilised in several different models. The XK engine is a good example of our philosophy. Introduced in 1948, it is still at least the equal of any power unit available today – and the very considerable cost of tooling it up for volume production has been justified many times over. I would add that, in decisions of this magnitude, one has to have complete faith in one's own judgement – had we taken the advice of the respected authorities of the time we would not have gone ahead with the project. Similarly, had it failed, I doubt very much whether Jaguar would have been in the progressive situation it is in today.

You may be surprised to hear that, in my opinion, the main pressures on the specialist car manufacturers are coming from below – from the volume car producers – rather than from other competitors in the specialist field. Until a few years ago the type of car produced by the specialists was out of reach of the volume producers – they did not possess the people, facilities, know-how or attitudes, all of which are essential ingredients for a specialist car. I am not being smug in making this assertion – it is not too difficult to think of volume producers, on both sides of the Atlantic, who have tried to produce a specialist luxury car and fallen well short of even their initial production targets. I admit that the converse could be equally true. Today, the situation is very different and the high volume producers are achieving a standard of refinement and luxury which would have been unattainable only a few years ago.

In the past, one could safely describe a specialist car as one which offered particularly high standards of design, manufacture and performance – with an emphasis also on quality and luxury, particularly if it were a saloon or convertible. These attributes – singly or collectively – appealed to the connoisseurs of motoring who were invariably prepared to pay a considerable premium for such vehicles. Generally speaking, it was produced in small quantities, and many of the best-known names of pre-World War Two days were manufacturers of this type. Unhappily, the fact that so few survived today is an indication of the fierceness of the competition with which we are having to contend. Into this select group, we injected the Jaguar models – different in design and appearance and with a good performance but produced in relatively large volumes in order to make the price realistic. I believe that, in those now far-off days, we started a whole new approach to specialist cars, and one which is now expanding rapidly.