The JLR Story

Two British marques, one house — the story of how Jaguar and Land Rover came together under Jaguar Land Rover.

Jaguar traces its roots to 1922, when William Lyons and William Walmsley founded the Swallow Sidecar Company in Blackpool, building motorcycle sidecars before moving into coachbuilt car bodies and, eventually, complete cars under the SS and later Jaguar names.

Land Rover began in 1948 at the Rover Company, when the original Series I was conceived as a rugged, go-anywhere utility vehicle for the post-war British countryside — a design brief that still defines the marque today.

Both companies passed through decades of British motor industry consolidation — British Leyland, BMW's Rover Group ownership, Ford's Premier Automotive Group — before Ford brought Jaguar and Land Rover together and ultimately sold the combined business to Tata Motors in 2008, forming Jaguar Land Rover as it exists today.

This site treats that combined heritage as a single story: two distinct engineering philosophies — Jaguar's performance and design language, Land Rover's off-road capability and durability — built by one house.