Jaguar cars began in 1922, and Blackpool in Lancashire seemed an unpromising launch platform for a car that became as aspirational as it did.

In the years that followed the end of World War 1, Sir William Lyons, then known as Bill, appeared to be a young motorcycle sidecar manufacturer with delusions of grandeur.  He was ambitious to move up to cars, and in 1927, he used his Swallow Sidecar workers coach building skills to make bodies for Austin Sevens, giving them a status, they scarcely deserved.

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