Two Jaguars, ninety years apart — and a drama-filled week at JLR

Jaguar just marked its 90th anniversary in London with one of the most powerful images in its history – and almost nobody noticed, because all the headlines were about Gerry McGovern being shown the door. However, we will seek to put that right in acknowledging this moment in history, 90 years on from the first Jaguar being unveiled and 1 year since the birth of Type 00. 

Outside The Chancery Rosewood hotel in Mayfair, the very first Jaguar saloon – an SS 2.5 Litre Jaguar from the 1930s was parked nose-to-nose with the brand’s latest statement piece, the all-electric Type 00 concept, finished in a new colour called London Red. This new hue is said to be inspired by London’s red-brick mansion blocks, gallery walls and the usual crimson icons – phone boxes and double-deckers.

On its own, that’s a big moment: the beginning of Jaguar and the possible beginning of its electric future, together on one London kerb. A shame then, that the pictures landed on the same news cycle as reports that the man who led the Type 00 project, JLR chief creative officer Gerry McGovern, had been fired with “immediate effect” and allegedly escorted out of Gaydon. 

You couldn’t script the timing.

Both cars were posed outside The Chancery Rosewood in London, chosen because its mix of mid-century lines and contemporary British art is meant to mirror Jaguar’s new “modern luxury” positioning – it is just around the block from the famous Mayfair Hotel, as well, where Sir William Lyons first presented the name Jaguar.

Jaguar director Rawdon Glover sums it up, “Jaguar has always been a pioneer of originality—defined by design excellence and a fearless, forward-thinking spirit. Ahead of the launch of our production vehicle next year it’s vital we continue to remind people of what makes Jaguar unique: being bold, unexpected, and unapologetically different. With Type 00, we’re challenging conventions in the automotive industry, just as the SS Jaguar did in its time.”

Whatever you think of the new design language, that’s the core of the story Jaguar is trying to tell: the first Jaguar ripped up convention in the 1930s; Type 00 is supposed to do the same for the EV age. We are just happy to see them acknowledging their past and heritage so openly once again. 

Back to where it started: Mayfair, 1935

Ninety years is not an invented number. In September 1935, Sir William Lyons unveiled the first SS Jaguar saloon at the Mayfair Hotel in London.  Lyons asked the assembled journalists to write down what they thought the new 2½-litre saloon would cost. The average guess was £632. Then Lyons announced the real price: £395. The room apparently gasped.

That car – low-roofed, long-bonneted and sleek in an era of upright, boxy British saloons – was the first to carry the Jaguar name and the first four-door car from the SS Company. Underneath was a new overhead-valve straight-six developed with Harry Weslake, making 102bhp – a world away from the old side-valve SS1. 

So when Jaguar parks an SS Jaguar saloon back in Mayfair in 2025, it isn’t just a neat photo opportunity. It’s the brand literally returning to the scene of the crime, with another long-bonneted four-seater meant to reset what a Jaguar looks like.

Spare a thought for the staff in these turbulent times

In a calmer week, “Jaguar celebrates 90 years” would have been the headline story. Instead, the enthusiast world has been fixated on Gerry McGovern’s abrupt exit from JLR.

For anyone following JLR news and certainly for those of us tasked with writing about it, it has started to feel less like an industry commentary and more like a showbiz gossip column crossed with a soap opera. Just look at the past 6 months: 

• UK industry hit with hiked tariffs from President Trump in their biggest export market
• Cyber-attack takes down production for weeks.
• New CEO PB Balaji arrives from Tata.
• Radical relaunch of Jaguar with Type 00 and a high-fashion campaign.
• Now the creative figurehead who fronted that relaunch is suddenly gone. The 90th-anniversary pictures deserve better than to be B-roll in that drama.

Inside the enthusiast bubble, it’s easy to treat this as entertainment. But if you work at Gaydon, Solihull, Halewood, Wolverhampton or in the design and engineering offices around the Midlands, this must feel deeply unsettling.

If you’re on the shop floor or in a CAD suite, you still have to turn up tomorrow and make the next car happen while the internet argues about whether the pink concept or the ad campaign killed the golden goose.

Why all this matters? 

Beyond the glamour of concept cars and heritage saloons, JLR (which Jaguar is a brand within) remains one of the bedrocks of Britain’s industrial economy. As of 2025, it directly employs about 33,000–34,000 people across 17 sites in the UK, with many thousands more working in its sprawling supply chain.  

A recent analysis estimated that JLR contributed approximately £17.9 billion to UK GDP in 2024 — roughly 0.6% of the entire country’s output. 

 In the West Midlands alone, JLR’s economic footprint is vast: including direct, indirect and induced effects, its activity supports an estimated £8.7 billion of regional economic output — roughly 4.7% of the West Midlands’ total economy. That level of scale means every shake-up at headquarters or within the design leadership — or every disruption to production — sends ripples through entire communities: not just at the factories like Solihull or Wolverhampton, but across supply industries, local services, and families whose livelihoods depend on JLR staying stable.

It’s worth saying this clearly: none of this soap opera is the fault of the people designing, engineering and building the cars. They’re the ones who will have to make the new electric Jaguar GT real, whatever happens at board level.

As an enthusiast, I sincerely hope these images aren’t a full stop. They should be a comma – the moment where Jaguar pauses, looks back at where it came from, and then finally gets on with building the next ninety years – because frankly, the UK needs it.