SS 90

The SS 90 was a British sports car built by SS Cars in Coventry in 1935, the company that took the name Jaguar in 1945. It used a six-cylinder 2,663 cc side-valve Standard engine tuned with Dural connecting rods, an aluminium cylinder head with a 7 to 1 compression ratio and twin RAG carburettors, fitted to a shortened version of the SS 1 chassis supplied by Standard, with half-elliptical springs all round and Bendix brakes. Its styling gained rapid attention but its performance did not match its appearance; no independent contemporary test is known, though it was widely believed to reach about 93 mph. Real sports car performance came with the overhead-valve SS Jaguar 100 that followed it. Twenty-three were built, of which sixteen survive, including the prototype.