‘ Coventry and the surrounding Midlands were a hive of the best engineers’
‘ Coventry and the surrounding Midlands were a hive of the best engineers’
That engine is the XK straight-six, which made its debut in the XK120 in 1948 and launched that car as the fastest in the world at the time. An auspicious start to its life, but such feats weren’ t in the engine’ s original plan. William Heynes of Jaguar specialists, William Heynes Ltd( WH), is intrinsically linked with the XK engine and tells us of its start in life.‘ My grandfather pushed Sir William Lyons, who was the owner of Jaguar, to develop an in-house engine.’ William shares the same name as his grandfather, who also went by Bill. To avoid any confusion, we’ ll refer to the elder Heynes as Bill.
Bill Heynes was born in 1903 in Leamington Spa, just a short distance from the UK’ s automotive centre: Coventry. His career started in the technical department of Humber before he went to work at William Lyons’ sidecar-turnedcoachbuilder-turned-car-builder company, SS Cars Ltd. After World War II, due to the negative connotations
associated with those initials because of the Nazis, the company changed its name to Jaguar.
‘ During the War, and at the end of the War, Coventry and the surrounding Midlands were a hive of the best engineers. My grandfather accumulated the best people around him: Walter Hasson, Wes Lake, Bob Knight. And he had the funding to crack on a bit. My grandfather came up with the idea, drafted it out, and came up with a fourcylinder. It went from four-cylinder form into a six-cylinder, because people want the six-cylinder, not the four.’
Engineers they may have been, but the aesthetics of the motor were also a prominent factor when creating the XK.‘ They designed it to be cosmetically beautiful as well. The XK engine is a naturally beautiful thing.’ It had to match the car as the XK120 was destined to be a looker too.‘ The package is everything. So if you’ re talking about modern hybrids, or classic Ferraris, or MGBs, or Jaguars, the package
The E-Type is as beautiful under its skin, thanks to its XK straight-six
20 The Engine Rebuilder Issue 06