the biggest cat in the automotive world is a prize catch for an indian predator but to term tata motors that would be grossly unfair ratan tata and his team were as stunned as the rest of the industry when ford put both jaguar and land rover on the market the result of this has culminated in tata motors now effectively the new owners of two of the motoring worldsgreatest brand names and given its recent tumultuous history i am sure that jaguar founder sir william lyons would be smiling on the dealwho would have thought that a firm started in blackpool to make sidecars for motorcycles would one day end up in indian hands when william lyons and his partner william walmsley set up swallow sidecars in 1922 they hadnt that faintest idea that they would be still in the business eighty years on making some of the best cars to epitomize grace space and pace ride out the mess that was british leyland ownership restart its climb back to the top get taken over by ford do well for a while before fords troubles resulted in it being put on the selling blockheck keeping the sad stuff aside lets concentrate on why jaguar is so strongly perceived and respected by automotive enthusiasts the world over from making sidecars of great quality and worksmanship it was inevitable that the two williamses got off to clothing some of the sporty small cars in vogue in england at that time mgs morrises austins satandards etc etc were given the swallow sidecar treatment and when from there on williams lyons headed into exciting but unchartered waters of breathing his specially bodied cars the world got a whiff of what was to come in the heady days after the second world war by the early 1930s the company had changed its name to ss an abbreviation of swallow sidecars got the standard motor co to build a special chassis to its own specifications but powered by a standard engine suitably breathed upon by ss of coursethis combination clothed in rakish sporty bodywork did the trick and ss was up and running orders poured in thick for a small firm that is but lyons knew that he had to get going on all fronts having a standard engine compromised the performance so lyons introduced two great automotive men into ss harry weslake guru of cylinder head design and combustiontechnologies and william heynes as the chief engineer from then on the firm never looked back halted of course in its stride by hitler getting everyone involved in bitter contretemps for six long dark yearsan inevitable fallout of ww ii was that the name ss had to be dispensed with obviously any mention of the german dictators dreaded gestapo was a big turnoff and so the name of this british firm was changed to jaguar cars and the firm had its premises up and running at coventry a new model development programme came in and the