Founder of Jaguar Car Company Dies : Sir William Lyons Began Career Making Motorcycle Sidecars

Sir William Lyons, who began his career making motorcycle sidecars and designing auto bodies for other manufacturers’ engines but then went on to found the Jaguar car company, died Friday.

A company statement said he was 83 when he died at his home, Wappenbury Hall, near this town in Warwickshire, the central England county that is the heart of Britain’s auto industry.

Lyons, Jaguar’s honorary president for life, died six months after the prestigious auto firm was sold back to private enterprise, ending nearly a decade as part of the state-owned British Leyland group.

In 1922, Lyons and a partner started making motorcycle sidecars in a workshop in the north England town of Blackpool, where the entrepreneur was born.

In 1928 he moved to Coventry, in Warwickshire, the current site of Jaguar’s main plant.

At first he designed bodies for use with other manufacturers’ engines but in 1931 produced his first car, the SS-Swallow Sports.

The first Jaguar came four years later and Lyons chose the name Jaguar after considering Gazelle, Hawk and other animal symbols.

After World War II, Lyons added a racing department to the company’s operations and in the early 1950s his sleek D-type Jaguars dominated international circuits, winning four times at the Grand Prix at Le Mans, France.

In a 1966 merger, Jaguar became part of the giant British Motor Holdings, which included Austin, Morris and MG. That company in 1968--with the addition of Triumph and Rover--evolved into the financially troubled British Leyland, which was rescued from bankruptcy by a state takeover in 1975.

Lyons, who was knighted in 1956, continued to oversee Jaguar after the merger, which he later described as “ruinous.”

He retired in 1972 before sales began to decline.

In recent years, sales of Jaguar’s distinctive sedans and sports cars have risen to a record 33,424 vehicles exported last year.