Not surprisingly Coventry had been a particular target for bombing raids, and it was necessary to organise rosters of people for what was known as ´fire-watching´.

One such group consisted of Lyons himself, Heynes, Hassan and Claude Baily. Together they made plans for a new engine that would establish the company as a world force.

Early post-war times were difficult for British companies. Amongst other problems were shortages of steel and foreign currency. The Government issued the dictum, ´Export or Die´ and steel quotas were closely related to export performance - in other words, no exports, no steel!

Firstly however, it was necessary to resurrect production as soon as possible and the best way to do this was to reintroduce the pre-war range in largely unchanged form. At the same time it was decided to drop the SS name, which had acquired an unfortunate wartime notoriety and simply call the company Jaguar Cars.

Soon after the war the sidecar division was sold and the 11/2, 21/2 and 31/2 litre saloons and dropheads were reintroduced to begin the big export push. The 31/2 litre model proved a little thirsty for the UK market, but was ideal for the USA where the majority were shipped.

Lyons had specified that the output from the new engine should be that ultimately achieved with ´Old Number 8´, 160 bhp. the designers bravely chose an overhead camshaft layout and after trying several configurations, the final engine was decided upon. It was to be a straight six of 3442 cc and given the name XK.

The achieved output was - 160 bhp! Jaguar now had an excellent new chassis, a tremendously exciting new engine, but no sports car. So the decision was made to produce a small number of sports cars, which would generate publicity and perhaps gain a few competition successes.

The task fell then to William Lyons to design a suitable body in just a couple of months for the 1948 Motor Show. The result ´stole the show´. It as known as the XK120 and was destined to become one of the greatest sports cars of all time.

This was no thinly disguised racing machine. It was refined in the usual Jaguar manner, had unrivalled comfort for such a car, and to cap it all, was priced at just £998 (£1,298 with tax).

The name was based on top speed which made it the fastest production car in the world. Indeed at first people were sceptical and refused to believe what was being claimed for the XK120.

To convince the sceptics however, some tangible proof of the claimed prowess was needed. Accordingly Jaguar took over a closed section of dual carriageway in Belgium where, in front of the assembled press, a standard XK120 proceeded to clock 126 mph. With the windscreen removed 133 mph was achieved and, as if this was not enough, the driver then pottered past the amazed press at a mere 10 mph in top gear.

The orders came flooding in and Jaguar quickly realised that the couple of hundred originally intended could not possibly meet demand.

The waiting lists were lengthened still further after the XK´s racing debut at Silverstone in a Production Sports Car race. Three cars were loaned by the factory to well known drivers Peter Walker, Leslie Johnson and Prince Bira of Siam. Bira was unlucky enough to have a puncture but the others finished first and second.

In 1950 it was decided to take three cars to France for the world famous Le Mans 24 hour race, merely to assess their capabilities against international opposition. They were unlucky not to finish in the top three, when the leading example succumbed to clutch trouble after 21 hours. However, valuable lessons had been learnt.

One of six specially prepared XKs had been lent to Tom Wisdom for competition use. He proposed offering the car to a young up-and-coming driver for the famous Dundrod Tourist Trophy race in Ulster.

Jaguar were not too keen as this young man was reputed to be too fast for his own good. Reluctantly they agreed, and in appalling conditions, Stirling Moss left the field behind to take one of the most important wins of his career.

On the rallying front Ian Appleyard had replaced LNW 100 with one of the six special XKs. NUB 120 took Appleyard and Lyon´s daughter Pat, to success in the Alpine Rallies of ´51 and ´52 and the Tulip Rally in ´51 and became one of the most successful rally cars of all time.