To most people Blackpool (UK) means summer holidays, the beach, the tower, trams, piers and entertainment. However, away from the Promenade is another Blackpool, ...

A few months ago, the city of Blackpool, England, tore down the old building that once housed the old Swallow Sidecar factory.

It wasn’t much of a loss – the brick structure was pretty beat up after decades of heavy use as a factory, and it was way past the point of any worth for modern industrial purposes.

Still, when the building came down, it took a bit of auto history with it. For the old Swallow Sidecar factory was the place where the line of motorcars that would come to be named Jaguar was born in 1927, five years after a young go-getter named Billy Lyons decided to get into the sidecar business after seeing a friend of his pull up one day on a Harley with a streamlined sidecar attached.

The sidecar business was a success, and Billy Lyons began dreaming of making sports cars. His first stab at it was to attach his own bodies to frames supplied by the Austin motorcar company. Billy, whose enthusiasm often exceeded his sense of reality, had told Austin to ship him as many chassis as it could spare.

Unfortunately, Billy and his workers could only produce two cars a day. The backlogged chassis spilled out the factory door and into the rail yards of Blackpool, creating a jam so monumental that the stationmaster told stories about it for years afterwards.

By 1928, Billy moved his manufacturing operation southeast to Coventry to be near the resources and industrial might of Birmingham. The Swallow Sidecar Company took its name with it to Coventry, and its Blackpool building was soon put to other uses.

Billy Lyons eventually became Sir Billy Lyons, noted as founder of Jaguar Cars Ltd.

Mark Singleton, BEM’s managing director, was born in Blackpool and remembers the old Swallow Sidecar factory, says, “I’m sorry Jaguar didn’t try to save the old building. The strange thing about Jaguar is that they’ve never seemed to care about their history being razed or rusting away. They didn’t even send a representative to the ceremony when the old works was torn down.

“Now that Jaguar is making a serious return to the marketplace and auto racing, I hope they realize what a great legacy they have. They should begin finding ways to consistently preserve, restore and exhibit the fine cars that brought them their reputation.” ■