Arthur Whittaker joined William Lyons and William Walmsley in their new Swallow Sidecar business at Blackpool as a salesman when he was 17. His contribution to Jaguar may be mostly forgotten by many – but not his granddaughters.
A classic 1948 Jaguar sports saloon, first owned by Arthur Whittaker, the Deputy Chairman of Jaguar Cars, has been re-united with his family 67 years after he parted with it.
In the older shot here Arthur is on the far left at the first Jaguar plant at Foleshill in Coventry. Queensland businessman and Mayor of Brisbane John Beals Chandler is in the centre being delivered his early MkVII and on the right is fellow Jaguar Director Ben Mason.
During Historics at Brooklands classic car auction in Surrey on Saturday, 4th March, Whittaker’s four granddaughters – Lucy, Sally, Sarah and Charlotte – who discovered the car’s impending sale purely by chance a fortnight earlier – fought off rival bidders to make it their own, settling on £70,000 for the jet black classic.
It will return to the eldest granddaughter Lucy’s family home in Kenilworth, just miles from the former Jaguar factory in Brown’s Lane, Coventry where it was originally manufactured 69 years ago.
“Once we discovered grandad’s Jaguar was for sale, we just had to go and see it”, said Sally. “We had no intention of buying it, but sitting in it before the sale brought back so many fond memories of family outings in his cars that we decided we just had to bid for it,” she continued.
The full story is in our coming edition – but well done to them!
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