Think 1948. Only four years since the War and you need bureaucratic clearance to buy a new car. Petrol is rationed, Sir Stafford Cripps is Chancellor of the Exchequer, and it is ten terrible years since the last Earls Court Motor Show. Now half a million car-starved hopefuls crowd in to see Hillman Minx, Vauxhall Velox, Morris Minor and Standard Vanguard. Hardly anybody expects to buy one. Cars are Export Only. We are still paying for the War.
These are austere times. Sports cars are Allards with Ford V8s, tiny MGs, and a bulbous Triumph Roadster with a dickey seat. There are pre-war leftovers from AC, Alvis, and Lea-Francis. Riley-engined Healeys look promising, top speeds are 100 or 110. Then, in a sudden shining light the sleek, svelte, XK120 looks every languorous inch like a hundred and twenty. Well, Earls Courtiers say, with a double overhead cam 3½ litre, so it ought to be.
It seemed too good to be true. Cripps’s regime had to swallow its disapproval since Jaguars were earning dollars. William Lyons was already selling to America in 1938 when he sprung a surprise at the last Earls Court. Jaguar Cars Ltd had been registered the previous November, the SS100 had not changed much in
