1980: John Egan and Fuel Injection

April 

In 1980, Michael Edwardes approached John Egan, a former BL director, and offered him the position at the top of Jaguar. John Egan took control of the company in April 1980 as Chairman and Chief Executive and he was committed to turning it around to better the competition. Plans were now also being laid for the gradual re-privatisation of BL which had become effectively nationalised in 1975.

John Egan became chairman in 1980 after a stint at Massey Ferguson, brought up in Coventry from early childhood, he is credited for Jaguar's post privatisation prosperity. Egan tackled the main problems that were holding Jaguar back from selling more cars: quality control, lagging delivery schedules and poor productivity. Later appraisal of his time at Jaguar comments that he exploited an elderly model range (on which all development costs had been written off) and raised prices. He also had a measure of success with the effort to improve Jaguar's quality. This was consolidated by Ford investment and quality framework practices after they bought Jaguar. A favourable and timely exchange rate in the US helped to offset the price increases. A company facing closure when he took over was sold ten years later to Ford for £1.6bn. Significant models from the Egan era include the transformation of the XJ series 3 and XJ40, XJ-S, XJ220 and the Jaguar XJR Sports cars including XJR-9 Le Mans winner.

May

Unfortunately by 1980, annual production had fallen to just under 1000 [667] units. This figure was an all-time low for the model. For a time production was stopped and a Board meeting was held to discuss the future of the XJ-S. Thanks mainly to John Egan the decision was made to stick with the model - there was only one way for the XJ-S to go and that was up.

September

The P-Digital fuel injection was introduced for the 1980 model year. A couple of major mechanical modifications included: Cars for  the American market were fitted with a new catalytic converter, Rear fog lamps were introduced as standard equipment for the UK market. Apart from the major changes shown above, there were a couple of minor changes included flush fitting aerial and Pirelli P5 tyres were introduced for the American market.