３   Company History  Jaguar

Narrator: Jaguar is one of Britain’s oldest and (             )(                  ) car manufacturers. The big cat symbol is famous world-wide and (                  ) style, performance and luxury.

The Jaguar story (                   ) in 1922 in Blackpool, a seaside town in the north of England. A young motorcycle enthusiast, Bill Lyons, (                  ) the Swallow Sidecar company on his twenty-first birthday. The company made motorcycle sidecars successfully until 1927, when they also (              ) to (                ) car bodies. They made body for the Austin seven chassis and (               ) the Austin Seven Swallow.

Further success and (                  ) soon followed and the company moved to Coventry in the Midlands ... the (                ) of the British motor industry. At this stage they employed 1,000 workers. Chassis for Swallow cars didn’t only come from Austin, they also came from several other companies including Standard. The initials of Standard Swallow provided the name for the (                    ) SS models which first (                 ) in 1931.

The SS cars were both (                ) and powerful. They were popular because they also had a very reasonable price. In the SS jaguar. The company developed a new 3.5 litre engine for its sports version, the SS Languor 100. This car was able to reach 100 miles per hour.

After the Second World War the company (                 ) the name SS and chose Jaguar as their new identity. In 1948 they launched the XK 120 sports car, which could (                 ) 120 miles per hour The design and (                     ) of this car set the standard for the stylish high - performance cars that appeared throughout the 1950s and 60s. Jaguar successfully entered motor racing and in I 953 won first, second and fourth places in the Le Mans 24-hour race.

Jaguar continued to (                    ) sports car racing throughout the 1950s. This racing experience led to the development of one of Jaguar’s most successful and famous models ... the E-Type ... which was launched in 1961. It could do an (              ) 150 miles per hour.

Today the company produces luxury high performance sports cars and saloons, and has five production centres in the UK. This factory in Coventry assembles XK sports cars and XJ saloons. Other factories in the area make the (                     ) such as the V8 engines that power the car.

A total of 2,200 people work at this factory, and they produce 140 saloons and 58 sports cars a day. Much of the work is (              )(               ) and workers do several tasks by hand, including cutting leather for the seats, and painting a line on the side of the body. Every car is made to order and customers specify (            ) that make each car virtually unique. Most cars are for export and over 60 per cent of orders come from the USA.

Jaguar maintains the highest quality through careful control procedures; this water test checks cars for leaks, and each car has a thorouqh road test before it leaves the factory. The company is now owned by Ford, but the Jaguar brand (            ) the strong identity that evolved in the classic sports cars of the 1950s and 60s.