Word: jaguars
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...third wife (the first two are dead), she is a celebrated figure at international spas, loves polo, shot 27 tigers before she retired from the sport because "I feel sorry for the animals." Now, as candidate, she neglects her custom of riding out in a monogrammed white Jaguar at 7 a.m. to exercise her husband's 18 polo ponies, spends the time instead writing campaign speeches and running four secretaries ragged with dictation...
...does Jaguar do it? The answer lies largely in Sir William's Spartan-like dedication to no frills and no featherbedding. Jaguar's ugly red-brick plant in Coventry is starkly functional: Sir William's own bare office is ornamented by a single ceramic jaguar. Working nine to twelve hours a day, he doubles unofficially as his own chief inspector, and expects each of his executives to fill at least two posts. The result: Jaguar has probably the lowest ratio of office to production workers of any major British automaker...
...Jaguar's greatest competitive edge comes from combining mass-production methods with a high standard of workmanship. Each car is checked 47 times during its production. Sir William prowls the plant each workday for at least an hour, often singles out one car for a minute personal inspection. He has turned cars back for no greater fault than a slight wrinkle in the leather upholstery. To reduce costly model changeovers, he aims for car designs that will not be quickly dated, makes certain a car is engineered to last...
...build custom bodies for Standard's chassis, called his car the Standard Swallow (and quickly shortened it to simply the "S.S."). To avoid the onus the Nazis had given to the initials SS, Lyons in 1945 changed the company's name to Jaguar. Production has risen from 250 a week in 1950 to the current clip of about 530, and Jaguar's sales to the U.S. have jumped from 912 in 1950 to an anticipated 7,500 this year...
Knighthood in 1956 has changed Bill Lyons not one whit. He still belongs to no clubs, leads a quiet life with his wife at their Georgian-Victorian country home. His only hobby, says a close friend, "is making Jaguar even better." He is also determined to make it bigger. To get more plant space, he last year bought Jaguar's venerable neighbor, the Daimler Co. Last week Sir William made his boldest move yet: he bought the Coventry plant of defunct Guy Motors, Ltd., where he plans to diversify into trucks. Aim: to have cart horses as well...