The Jowett Javelin was produced from from 1947 to 1953 by Jowett Cars Ltd in Idle, near Bradford. It was designed by Gerald Palmer during World War II as a planned leap forward from the rather traditional pre-war Jowetts.
The new Javelin made its first public appearance on y 27 July 1946 in a cavalcade to celebrate 60 years of the British Motor Industry organised by the SMMT. Series production started in November 1947. In a 1949 road test report The Times’ correspondent welcomed the Javelin’s good performance and original design. Controls were said to be light to operate, making it a restful car to drive.
The flat-four overhead valve engine of 1486 cc with a compression ratio of 7.2:1 was water-cooled and had an aluminium block and wet cylinder liners. It developed 50 bhp at 4100 rpm, giving the car a maximum speed of 77 mph. The radiator was behind the engine. A four-speed gearbox with column change was used. Early cars had gearboxes made by the Henry Meadows company. Later, Jowett made the gearboxes, but the decision to make the gearboxes in-house proved to be a costly mistake. Even though Jowett had some experience in transmission manufacturing, the project went disastrously wrong; bodies without powertrains stacked up in the assembly line because of problems in gearbox production.
The steeply sloped, curved windscreen was a first for a British production car. The body was of pressed steel, and was made for Jowett by Briggs Motor Bodies in their Doncaster factory. However, Briggs was bought in 1953 by Ford and was reluctant to extend credit to Jowett or to build in small quantities, so the firm had nowhere else to go. This ultimately led to the closure of the company in 1954, when Jowett sold its factory at Idle to International Harvester, excluding plant and equipment needed for the service and spares departments.
Ultimately shareholders received back rather more than the nominal value of their shares. That process was completed in mid-1955.
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