William Lyons and William Walmsley had formed the Swallow Sidecar Company in 1922 to make outrigger passenger pods for motorcycles, but by 1927 Lyons' instincts for style and marketing led Swallow Sidecar to offer sports bodies on the tiny Austin 7, and eventually they made sports bodies on Standard and Wolseley chassis. By 1931 the company was offering cars based on Standard chassis and engines under the S.S. name, and while the cars allowed buyers the opportunity to cut a dashing profile on a budget, the side-valve engines didn't offer much in the way of urge. In 1935 the firm began to call its products Jaguars and introduced the SS 90, powered by a 2.5 liter Standard inline six. The model number referenced the target top speed, but fleetness was reflected more in the car's tightly-drawn curves than in its performance figures.
The lines were fetching though, especially on the prototype shown above, which featured deck and fenders gracefully wrapping around the angled spare tire. On the production version of the car, Lyons and his team substituted a flat slab fuel tank at the rear, a bit more like those on competing models from MG and AC. There were only 22 examples produced after that prototype, though, because potential buyers were unimpressed by the side-valve Standard six...
The production SS 90 displays swooping fenders, a tight cockpit allowing only a small gap between the driver's chest and the steering wheel, and masterful proportions. To bring the car's performance into line with its looks, William Lyons got Harry Weslake to design a new overhead valve cylinder head, and in 1936 S.S. Cars Ltd. introduced the SS Jaguar 100 on the same 104 inch wheelbase as the SS 90...
This worked. In 1937, Lyons and team released the 3.5 liter version of the SS-100, and when Autocar tested one, it managed to hit 60 in 10.4 seconds, cutting over 3 seconds off the 2.5 liter's elapsed time, with a top speed of 101 mph. The SS-100 sold better than the 90, with 314 examples rolling out of the Browns Lane factory before war put an end to car production in 1939.
Before that happened, though, Lyons and designer Cyril Holland attempted to expand the appeal of the SS 100 by producing a fixed roof coupe on the chassis. This appeared in 1938. At the front, the car displays the typically British array of Lucas P100 headlamps, fog lights, horns and chromed struts in front of the vertical radiator. Instead of the open clamshell fenders of the SS 100 roadster, however, these elements nestle between new fenders of aerodynamic teardrop form...
In overall form, the coupe reflected contemporary thinking from the other side of the English Channel, in the designs being produced on Delahaye and Talbot Lago chassis by Chapron and Figoni. The decision not to integrate the lights and radiator into the streamlined forms, though, left admirers at the Earls Court Show no doubt that this was a British car...
The rear view shows off the repeated teardrop fender forms, the absence of running boards, and the low stance. The visual impact is enhanced by the absence of bumpers, and the way the door window sills appear to align with the fender tops and bonnet. One distinctive touch that separates this design from its French influences is the way the curve of the roof in side elevation turns ever so slightly inward where it meets the surface of the deck. The unique SS 100 coupe was sold off the stand at that Earls Court show, and was not followed by a production version, to the disappointment of its many admirers...
After the war, though, Jaguar became an important part of the British export drive, and the XK120*, introduced in 1949 as a roadster, was joined by fixed-head coupe in 1951. This car featured an updated version of the teardrop forms on the lone SS 100 coupe, highlighted at the rear by that recurved-section roofline that would also appear on the Mark VII sedan. Even the shape and size of the backlight, along with the tapered tail, echoed the elegant form of the forgotten SS 100 coupe...
Bill Lyons was never one to throw away a good idea...
*Footnotes: For a brief history of Jaguar's XK-120, including the story of how William Lyons and his engineers conceptualized the car during fire-spotting duty on the factory roof during the the Nazi aerial bombings of World War II, see "Game Changer: Jaguar XK-120" in these posts for July 16, 2017.
Photo credits: All photos are by the author except for the following:
Top: uk.motor1.com
2nd: wikimedia
Bottom: jaguarforums.com
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