61/365 Feline grace and power!

No the title, doesn’t refer to me *wink* This is a close up of the famous Jaguar mascot on a bonnet, which I shot at the “Spring Vehicle Meet” at Andover yesterday.

2010 marked the 75th anniversary of Jaguar Cars. Sir William Lyons founded Swallow Sidecars in 1922, and went on to create a range of 'SS' branded motorcycle sidecars and automobiles in the 1920s. When it came to the launch of the all-new SS 100 in 1935, Sir William wanted a new and evocative name for his company. He chose 'Jaguar', and the SS 100 model became the world's first Jaguar.

The ‘Jaguar’ name represented “the feline grace and elegance, power and agility that set his cars apart” Sir William is quoted as saying that a car "was the closest thing we can create to something that is alive” Which any woman who has a SO (Significant Other) in a car club will know is OH SO VERY TRUE! J (or that they are in fact considered to be REALLY alive, moving an engine from one car to another is called a “transplant”!!)

Over the years Jaguar has built some of the world's most iconic cars; the XK120, the C Type and D Type race cars that followed, dominated motor racing in the 1950s; the E-Type, launched in the heady 1960s defined a whole generation. In March 2008 the Jaguar E-Type ranked first in the Daily Telegraph’s list of the "100 Most Beautiful cars" of all time.


Ian Callum Jaguar’s current Design Director, says “Designing cars with a presence that demands a turn of the head and an allure that pulls at the heart has been central to the Jaguar brand.”

Head and heart, I guess that HAS to sum up car ownership, if it was all about the head we’d all be driving Skoda’s for economy, rather than buying £50 pots of wax to shine up the mechanical loves of our lives ;)

On the photographic side of things, I am really starting to be “at one” with my new Olympus, I hardly had to crop or edit or correct this set of shots at all, and the quality is immense, I love that you can see every tiny detail in the metal of the jaguar and its only a few cm in size. I spent most of my time in close up mode yesterday, as I just love the quality and attention to detail on classic cars, every tiny part of them is a work of art, and could stand in its own right. I can’t help feeling we have lost something in the design and build or cars over the years, I am for example not sure people will be taking close up shots of a Vauxhall Corsa in the year 2040 ??