Museo Stradale
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Dominic's Auto Museum
One man's passionate quest to survey finest motorcars in the world
#0018 - Jaguar SS-100 3 ½ Litre Roadster, 1937
Photographed: Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, 2009. Owner: Robin & Alison Green
75th Anniversary: As we look toward the 75th year of Jaguar to be celebrated at this year's Pebble Beach Concours, we should certainly return to the nascent days of William Lyon's company—those of sidecars, tiny Austins, saloons, and an eventual sports successor in a form unremarkable for its adhesion to British road car sensibilities. While most Americans will decipher similarities between the SS cars and early MG models, there's perhaps more to be found in the Riley marque that suggests where Lyons' inspiration was seeded. This, of course, was natural for a company that fancied its chances in the up-market luxury segment, whereas Riley were purveyors of serious sports cars. And so why not pattern this early roadster after an established leader?
Our Black Car: This particular SS has gotten a lot of attention of late. In addition to a class win at Pebble Beach last year, (you can look in the June 2010 issue of Octane to see the owner, Robin Green, posing with his trophy and the car in an Auto Glym advert), the car followed up with an appearance at Ville d'Este in Italy. Perhaps, then, the advert's claim that this is the world's best SS is at least partly substantiated; surely it's the SS of the moment but, in true British fashion, it's also one of the most subdued—blacked out with a matte finish, drab interior, and matching wheels. For a fine example, it is wholly understated. Now, that says nothing of its cosmetic and mechanical execution, but where beauty and significance are concerned, surely the gorgeous SS-90 prototype and early fixed-head cars surpass the example in both respects.
The prototype car is not native to these shores, although it is reported to attend Pebble Beach this year, and fixed-head variants of the SS are hard to come by regardless of the continent, and retain an elegance the standard production roadster never mustered. Either would be, at least at the most cursory glance, more striking than this car. But we should not disparage what remains a handsome little roadster. Some people, for that matter, love black cars, and in my photographs I tried to play that theme to a maximum.
Moving Forward: As we look on Jaguar's later accomplishments, it should be said that the little SS doesn't really hint at the great success of this marque. From the XK-120 through to the E-Type, a perfect confluence of technical advances and circumstantial luck produced a remarkable breed of sports car with an equally remarkable record. The SS-100 just does not foreshadow such brilliance; it shows direction, but even William Lyons was reserved rather than ambitious where motorsport was concerned—definitely not the egoistic auteur like Ferrari. But, through good design, Lyons and his feline-inspired marque would stumble into success of a comparable degree in the first post-War decade.
It was quite a journey and a bit of an underdog story, and at least that much the SS-100 can depict—an unassuming British roadster with a big, bright future, though it certainly wasn't written in the sheet metal.
Sources:
Automobile Quarterly's Great Cars & Great Marques, Beverly Rae Kimes, Editor, Bonanza Books, New York, NY c. 1979, generally pages 36-47 The Sporting Rileys which, in this case, gave a bit of repose on the matter
Octane Magazine ran the Auto Glym ad, but aside from that is a tip-top magazine.
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