Myth Buster
Debunking the most common old wives’ tales
1 IT WAS ALUMINIUMBODIED
Because the Javelin was so radical, plus its Bradford and Jupiter stablemates used aluminium in their bodies, and steel was in such short supply after the war, there’s a myth that the Javelin also had an aluminium shell. But, no, it was pure pressed steel.
2 IT HAD BRITAIN’S FIRST COLUMNMOUNTED GEARSHIFT
The late art critic, Brian Sewell, was a Javelin fan, not least because of its twin-bench seat ability to comfortably seat six people as it ‘was the first British car to have a steering-column gearlever.’ Close, but no cigar. The Triumph 1800 Roadster just sneaked in ahead of it as the UK pioneer of this space-saving transmission Americanism.
3 IT WAS INFLUENCED BY THE MINOR
It has been suggested that the Javelin’s compact 1.5-litre flat-four engine was strongly influenced by Alec Issigonis’s aborted power plans for the Morris Minor, designed at the same time. The Javelin’s creator, Gerald Palmer, worked alongside Issigonis for MG at Cowley before he left for Jowett in 1942. However, Palmer cited the contemporary flat-four Steyr engine plus the layout of the Fiat Topolino as his main inspirations.
4 FORD KILLED IT OFF
When Jowett car production ended in 1954, blame was placed on Ford, which had bought Jowett’s body-builder, Briggs, in Doncaster and then refused to renew the contract. However, Jowett had started to make its own Javelin gearboxes instead of buying them in. Quality was awful and sales fell. Jowett couldn’t pay Briggs, so it stopped supplying bodies. It was working at less than half-time when Ford put in its bid.