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Jowett Javelin

Jowett as a company was founded back in 1901 and like many vehicle manufacturers of today, begun by making bicycles. The company rebranded as Jowett motor manufacturing company in 1904, with their first car produced in 1906. However, it wasn’t until 1910 when the vehicles became available to the buying public.

Whereas the Javelin was a universal car designed for worldwide appeal, their first car was designed to be simple and tackle the local terrain: a low weight vehicle with low speed torque and gearing ratios suited to the hills and high points of Yorkshire.

1914 sees the outbreak of the First World War, which means the factory output is put on hold for war efforts and it’s not until 1919 when the company takes on its factory in Idle, Bradford and begins producing cars.

Keeping this brief, there are then a few highs and lows. 1921 is the first London Motor Show for the Yorkshire based car manufacturer and takes it nationwide. A fire in 1931 sets them back briefly and in mid 35 the company becomes publicly listed on the London Stock Exchange.

And then we have the Second World War, which once again, puts things on hold.

But unlike many, Jowett didn’t take those wartime years as a pause and were still working away in the background. They knew that the cars post war needed to be far more advanced than what had been offered pre-war and drafted in Gerald Palmer in 1942, who had lead the design on the MG Y type.

Palmer got to work and his car was the Javelin, debuted in 47 and on sale from 48.

Knowing post-war cars would need mass appeal and to be able to sell globally for company success and to meet those government steel quotas, he applied his lived experiences of early life in Zimbabwe and applied this to the road handling considerations; knowing roads overseas would need much more.

The Javelin was an all new design and combined sleek monocoque coachwork with a new 1.5 litre flat four engine said to be capable of sports car performance at instant command.

Apologies at this point, because I do refer to it as a slant four engine later on when I meant flat four!

Suspension was torsion bar with rack and pinion steering and you’ll see when we go driving, the low centre of gravity means it really sticks to the road. It’s easy to see why it was a car which competed in many a race and had an outright victory at the 1953 Tulip Rally.

There were two levels of trim: standard and deluxe. This car we test here today is a deluxe, given away by the door card arm rests.

Sadly the car whilst loved by motoring experts, was simply too much for a small firm. We talk about some of the problems later, but there simply wasn’t the infrastructure to push the car or to make the sales quotas happen and there ended up being piles of parts and it led to Jowett closing down in 1954.

But Jowett isn’t a name we should forget: the club is thriving and active, the cars are still perfectly usable and as you’ll see here today when in 1947, motor sport magazine described it as an astonishing car and a credit to the British technician, they were absolutely spot on.