A LEGEND IN ITS OWN LIFETIME
The 1960s began with President Kennedy promising that America would land a man on the moon by the end of the decade, however hard or expensive it would be. As we know (unless you believe in conspiracy theories), it happened with only a few months to spare. Fitting into the same time scale, the Beatles came and went, while the UK won the Eurovision Song Contest – twice. England also did rather well in a 1966 football match, apparently.
The decade’s other iconic event was the 1961 launch of the Jaguar E-Type. It’s hard to imagine now just how much of a stir it caused, but boys of all ages drooled at the prospect of zooming along the new motorways at 150mph. In those days speed thrilled, not killed.
To understand Jaguar’s role in the Swinging Sixties, we have to go back about a century to when Britain was emerging from WW1. There were many potential business opportunities, especially involving transport. Cars were still priced beyond the means of most, but motorcycles, then still much like a pedal cycle with internal combustion supplanting the bottom bracket, were relatively affordable. And if you needed space for more than a pillion, a bolt-on sidecar was the answer. At one extreme, some were shed-like edifices, big enough to accommodate a nuclear family. Sport sidecars with ‘zeppelin’ bodywork were also coming into fashion, and this is where a young entrepreneur called William Lyons enters the picture. Not wishing to join the family’s Blackpool-based
