From Swallow to Jaguar – A retrospective at Palm Beach Motors

Russell Glace, George Harrison, Cindy and John Gommel, Rick Hartwell and Jack Williams from the South Florida Jaguar Club met at the dealership at 4:30 to position the cars, which were staged on the Eastern side (Dixie Hwy) side of the showroom. Cars displayed by the club were Jack’s 1935 SS, Russell’s 1954 XK120 ("Oscar"), Rick and Diane Hartwell’s venerable 1959 Mark IV and Cindy and John’s Series 1973 3 E type, resulting in a display representing a span of some 38 years of Jaguar history.

After we placed the cars, the group departed for a light dinner. Returning to the main event, we found Susanne and Bob Veder had joined the party and were already mingling with the guests. Long lines snaked their way up to the representative’s tables where the Christies experts were quietly conducting the highly confidential appraisals. Unlike the open format of the Antiques Roadshow, it was impossible for snoopy observers to eavesdrop, so we made our way outside to the cars, where many partygoers were stopping to pose for pictures.

Although the evening’s focus was on House & Garden and Christies, the cars presented more than casual interest to the Jaguar enthusiast. Represented outside Palm Beach Motors’ showroom was some 38 years of Jaguar history, a history beginning with the development of the company during the pre-depression years, punctuated by the disruption of WW II and ending with the early ‘70’s socialist government upheavals. major labor strikes and the worldwide oil crisis.

Rick and Diane’s 1959 Mark IX represents the final outcome of a postwar production development begun when steel was strictly rationed, and available only for cars designed to be sold for export. Jaguar’s Mark series began with the retrospectively named Mark IV’s in 1947, fitted with left hand drive and pointed toward the US market.

In the meantime, however, Jaguar had also developed a new engine, so revolutionary that it, unlike the Mark series, it could not be put into volume production immediately but was put into limited production in a sports car, known as the XK120. This new engine was placed in a shortened version of the new chassis, and fitted with independent front suspension, originally designed for the planned new saloon series.

The Mark series, finally introduced in 1950 was mechanically similar to the XK120 except that it had wider ratio gears. It laid the foundation for continuing prosperity for the Jaguar company. As demonstrated by Rick and Diane’s Mark IX, it is an extremely elegant car, with room for six passengers, meticulously appointed, but with the capability for high performance, the ultimate in luxury and touring cars. No wonder it attracted many admiring glances from the House & Garden/Christies well-appointed crowd, who sensed an immediate affinity!

The Mark’s close relationship with the XK’s was once again demonstrated in the Mark IX’s engine, which was destined to be fitted to the XK150’s a year later. It also, like the XK150, sported disk brakes all around.

Our mini exhibition of Jaguar history concluded with John and Cindy Gommel’s 1973 Series III, E type, which skips a generation of E type Jaguars originally put into production in 1961, replacing the XK150. Its interior was lighter and simpler than the XK150’s but the engine and gearbox were the same as in the 3.8 litre XK150’s. By 1973 the Series III E type had replaced its earlier progenitors, the Series I (1961-1967) and the Series II. The Series II, which was an extensive revision during 1967 (the production of the so-called Series 1 ½ model with series one features such as triple windscreen wipers, but with open headlights) was developed to meet the demands of an American market now dictated and constrained by safety and emissions regulations. The Series III, which ended E type production in 1974, represents yet another culmination in a long and successful history of development stemming from the XK150 to the emergence of the XJ-S.

In 1917, during WWI, George Frederick Ernest Albert Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (George V) abandoned all German titles and changed the name of the British royal house to Windsor. In 1945 the "SS" Swallow abandoned its unlikely association with Germany, but also its association with the motorcycle sidecar and changed forever to a Jaguar. During this historic span Britain moved to accommodate itself to the ever-changing world maintaining throughout war, domestic, and international crisis its ability to produce some of the finest cars available to the driving public both at home and abroad.