Ray Hutton – författare

The first Jaguar was presented by William Lyons in 1935 and heralded a line of saloons and sports cars that would be celebrated throughout the world. After the Second World War, Jaguar Cars became established as a foremost manufacturer of innovative high-performance cars. From the launch of the XK engine and XK120 sports car in 1948, through the sensational arrival of the E-Type, icon of the 1960s, and the XJ6, the definitive Jaguar for more than twenty years, Jaguar continued to be a byword for speed and style. The company successfully navigated the tight bends of changing ownership against the backdrop of industrial unrest in the British motor industry. While other famous car marques were consigned to history, Jaguar renewed itself and met the challenges of new markets and tastes. Independent ownership under Sir John Egan in the 1980s was followed by a takeover by Ford and an expanded model range to include the S-Type and X-Type. In 2008 the company was sold again to Tata Motors of India and further widened with the development of the F-Pace SUV and the i-Pace, its first electric car.Award-winning motoring journalist Ray Hutton’s long experience and inside knowledge of the motor industry makes this book an essential companion to Britain’s most successful manufacturer of sporting luxury cars.

Often, they appeared just once, tucked away in the corner of a lavish stand at one of the big international motor shows; some were never shown in public, confined to technical conferences and seminars. Not flashy ‘dream cars’, rather, these are the real ‘concept cars’, produced less for show and eye-catching magazine covers, and more to demonstrate technological prowess of their makers.Ray Hutton delves into the archives to remember forty of these fascinating one-offs created through the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, a time of rapid development for everyday cars and growth in sales for the premium brands. Between them, they predicted almost all of the features of today’s production cars. And, just as important, are the ambitious failures and the purposely provocative that led nowhere.Most of these cars are long forgotten. They are, in a sense, the cars that never were, and they represent milestones in that development as well as being fascinating in their own right. This book brings them briefly back to life.