Jaguar Cars, since December 2012 officially incorporated as Jaguar Land Rover Ltd, is a British multinational car manufacturer headquartered in Whitley, Coventry, England, owned by Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC, a subsidiary of Indian automaker, the Tata Motors company.
Jaguar was founded as the Swallow Sidecar Company by Sir William Lyons in 1922, originally making motorcycle sidecars before developing passenger cars. The name was changed to Jaguar after World War II to avoid the unfavourable connotations of the SS initials. Following sale to The British Motor Corporation in 1968—which merged with Leyland Motor Corporation and was later nationalised as British Leyland—Jaguar was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1984, and became a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index until it was acquired by Ford in 1990. Jaguar has, in recent years, manufactured cars for the British Prime Minister, the most recent delivery being an XJ in May 2010. The company also holds royal warrants from HM Queen Elizabeth II and HRH Prince Charles.
Jaguar cars today are designed in Jaguar Land Rover’s engineering centres at the Whitley plant in Coventry and at their Gaydon site in Warwickshire, and are manufactured in Jaguar’s Castle Bromwich assembly plant near Birmingham.
