JAGUAR HERITAGE TRUST NEWS ISSUE 5 – August - October 2015 Welcome to the fifth issue of ‘The Trust’ – the The Trust’s collection of Jaguars will be newsletter for the Jaguar Heritage Trust. accommodated on the ground floor of the new building which will also contain a 6 ramp ‘The Trust’ focuses on the various activities and workshop with an overhead viewing gallery – to events that have involved the Heritage Trust enable visitors to see the work being carried out team or its vehicle collection – many of which on the cars. The upper floor will be home to the continue to be in support of the parent Jaguar reserve collection of the British Motor Industry Land Rover business. The key news in this Heritage Trust (BMIHT) and it also hoped to issue concerns the imminent move of the Trust accommodate some of the Jaguar Heritage team and its vehicle collection into the new Trust’s collection of Daimler and Lanchesters on building being completed at the Gaydon site. this level. The new Collections Centre: Museum Refurbishment: As anyone who has visited the Heritage Motor As reported in the last issue, the refurbishment Centre at Gaydon recently will have seen, the project will totally reconfigure the main Heritage impressive new ‘Collections Centre’ (its official Motor Centre museum and move its entrance to name) is now very nearly complete. be opposite the new Collections Centre. As part of this, the Jaguar gallery will be re-designed and re-positioned; the new display area will be semi-circular with a feature car on a raised plinth and the other cars fanning out from this point. The picture above is taken from the HMC’s live webcam on October 19 and shows that the structure is now finished (all the exterior cladding and glazing), the access ramp for the The theme of the display will continue to be upper level is in place and landscaping is Jaguar Sports and Racing Cars and there will be underway. There is still some internal fitting out a large circular banner above the stand on to complete but the plan is that the building will which will be mounted the Trust’s collection of be handed over on November 6. nine quarter scale model Group C cars – creating a dramatic view from across the The Trust team will be moving into its new museum! offices during w/c November 9 and also starting to bring over some of the vehicle collection from To allow this work to take place, the museum the current storage warehouse in Coventry. It is will be closed from the end of November until hoped the Collections Centre will be open to the mid-February 2016. Details of the re-opening public for guided tours from the weekend of plans will be advised in due course. November 14-15 although this will be for quite a short time window as the whole museum is due Office Plans: to close at the end of November for a major refurbishment to take place (see later). The ground floor of the Collections Centre will house the new office facilities where the Trust 1 staff currently based at the Fairfield Court, The following weekend saw a couple of the Seven Stars Industrial Estate site in Coventry Trust’s inveterate volunteers head off to the will be moving. They will be sharing the new famous Nürburgring for the Oldtimer Grand office with some of the BMIHT Collections team Prix, Germany’s largest race meeting for classic headed by Tim Bryan. The Jaguar Heritage cars. The Trust provided three cars from its Archive team will stay located in the main collection to help make up a ‘grid’ of historic museum building alongside the BMIHT Archive sports cars on the Jaguar stand – the 1938 SS team. 100, 1956 longnose D-type and 1984 TWR XJS. The Fairfield Court office will continue to operate because the lease is being taken over by Jaguar Land Rover. This is so that the former Trust employees who moved across to the JLR Branded Goods team in April can carry on working there. A further change that will take place when the Trust relocates to Gaydon is that we will no longer offer merchandise for sale via our website – the only online ordering channel will be via the main Jaguar e-shop at: https://shop.jaguar.co.uk/ This event also hosted the only round of the Jaguar Heritage Challenge race series to take Further information regarding the new address place outside the UK. and contact details will be published on our website www.jaguarheritage.com just before the Back in July, following an article that appeared move takes place. in Autocar about the Broadspeed Jaguar XJ12C, discussions took place with chief tester, Matt Prior, about organising a session for him to Events Review: have some hands on experience with the Trust’s example of this mighty racing car. Blyton Park Although the events season has finally race track was chosen as the venue and the quietened down for the winter months, the date was set for August 13th. period since the last issue of the Trust was once again action packed, with the team turning out to support a variety of events both at home and abroad. Here is a whistle-stop tour, month by month. August – the month began with the Jaguar Drivers’ Club National Day on August 2nd which this year was held at Wroxall Abbey near Warwick. As this was in the local area, the Trust was able to support with a selection of eight cars ranging from its 1938 SS100 up to the 1984 The camera arm being fitted to the Broadspeed TWR XJS racing car – the latter celebrating the XJ12C to capture action shots of Matt’s drive model’s 40th anniversary this year. In the meanwhile, we were also contacted by Jaguar’s Danish importer which was doing some PR work with Danish racing driver John Nielsen – who famously won the Le Mans 24 hour race in 1990 driving The JLR Heritage Parts team also came along a Jaguar XJR-12 with their hospitality unit to promote their which he co-drove products to the many visitors attracted by the with Martin Brundle line-up of beautiful classic Jaguars. and Price Cobb. 2 As Blyton was already booked and the date number of other interesting cars including the worked for the Danish team, arrangements were Trust’s 1929 Austin 7 Swallow saloon, one of put in place to re-unite John with a TWR Silk Cut the first cars to be produced in the Foleshill Jaguar - albeit the Trust’s 1998 Le Mans factory following the company’s move from winning XJR-9 rather than an XJR-12. Blackpool. John showed that he had lost none of his racing skills and enjoyed a few hard driven laps round the circuit to the delight of the film crew and Some of the Trust’s cars outside the CTM – including other onlookers! the 1907 Daimler and 1929 Austin 7 Swallow Hot on the heels of this was another local event, The same weekend, continuing our support of Coventry Car Day, which took place on August the Jaguar Clubs both large and small, two more 15th. This was organised by the Coventry of the Trust’s intrepid volunteers set off for the Transport Museum as part of the ongoing south coast to support the Jaguar Enthusiasts’ celebration of their recent major refurbishment Club Portsmouth Region’s annual event. and was planned to showcase cars built by as Held in conjunction with the Weald & Downland many historic Coventry manufacturers as Vintage & Steam event at a showground near possible. Goodwood, more than 150 classic Jaguars were brought along by their proud owners. One of the stars was the Trust’s 1938 SS Jaguar 100, one of the few surviving original examples of this sought after car. Many thanks to event organiser and former Jaguar Chief Engineer, John Cady, who kindly provided accommodation for the Trust’s support team (and their wives) for the weekend! To this end, the Trust provided a wide range of Coventry built Jaguars and Daimlers from its collection – ranging from the mighty 1907 Daimler TP35 open tourer through to the very last Jaguar to be built in the city which is a 2005 Jaguar Super V8 Portfolio – the final car to come off the production line at the Browns Lane plant. In between these bookends were a 3 The month of August finished up with the by Princess Diana – and which has the Oulton Park Gold Cup race weekend which uncommon addition of two rear seats which hosted the finale of the Jaguar Heritage were used to accommodate Princes William and Challenge series. The pair of Mike Wilkinson Harry when they were rather smaller than they and John Bussell ensured a classic ending to are now! To read more about Joe’s experiences the inaugural season as they took the on the tour and to see more photos, click here. chequered flag driving their Jaguar E-type – formerly owned by Formula One legend Sir Jackie Stewart. The Trust had a further four cars on display at the Concours itself – three also with royal connections, the 1955 Mark VllM, 1973 Jaguar Race fans were treated to a special spectacle XJ12 and 1992 Daimler DS420 limousine all of on the Monday when Andy Wallace was which were the personal transport of HRH reunited with the Trust’s XJR-9 which he co- Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother. drove to victory in the 1988 Le Mans 24 hour race.