This car is the ‘Job One’ S-TYPE which was built on 11 January 1999, the first production car of the model, which was reserved for the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust. For the first time, this was a Jaguar not built in the historic Coventry, Browns Lane, factory; instead the S-TYPE was manufactured in Jaguar’s Castle Bromwich factory in Birmingham. This was originally built to make Spitfires for the Battle of Britain, had housed Pressed Steel Fisher (who built Jaguar bodies) post-war and became part of BMC when they acquired  Pressed Steel in the 1965. The plant continued to make Jaguar bodies throughout the BMC and British Leyland eras and became Jaguar’s body plant while under Ford ownership.

The X200 model, named the S-TYPE after the equivalent Jaguar model of the 1960s and launched at the 1998 British International Motor Show at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, was one of the most eagerly awaited new Jaguar models for many years. For the first time in almost thirty years, it gave Jaguar a second saloon model in the range. It brought Jaguar back to its roots as a maker of compact luxury sports saloons, and was the first all-new saloon model introduced after the Jaguar company had been taken over by Ford in 1989.

While the S-TYPE initiated the policy of sharing selected components with other cars manufactured by the Ford Group, the designers and engineers behind the car remained faithful to the ideal of making the car a true Jaguar thoroughbred. This was evident in the distinctive style, developed under the guidance of the late Geoff Lawson, Jaguar’s Design Director whose last work the S-TYPE was. The car featured several instantly recognisable Jaguar styling signatures, evoking the spirit of Jaguars of the past, without being in any way ‘retro styled’.

A new car needed a whole new marketing campaign, not least to make sure it didn’t take traditional Jaguar owners away from the flagship XJ6 large saloon, now in its 5^th generation X300 guise. The launch video for the new car harked back to the successful medium sized saloon from the 1960s – the Mark II with a them of ‘History Repeating Itself’.