Malcolm Sayer
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Malcolm Sayer (1916-1970) was a designer of Jaguar cars. He was one of the first engineers to apply principles of aerodynamics to car design. His designs include:
- Jaguar C-type (also called XK 120C, due to its being based on the Jaguar XK 120)
- Jaguar D-type
- Jaguar E-type
- Jaguar XJS (although the car launched several years after Sayer's death)
Born in Cromer, Sayer was Educated at Great Yarmouth Grammar School (where his father taught Maths and Art) and later at the then Loughborough College. He worked for the Bristol Aeroplane Company during the Second World War, which was exempted him from conscription by way of reserved occupation protection. Following the was he then went to Iraq in 1948 to work at Baghdad University which turned out to exist only on paper so worked instead maintaining fleet of government vehicles.
Returning in 1950 he joined Jaguar in 1951, and later married and fathered 3 children. Some of his particular contributions were the introduction of slide rule and seven-figure log tables to work out formulae he invented for drawing curves, work which is now undertaken by complex Computer Aided Design software.
Apart from design skill was also very good musician and played piano and guitar and other sundry instruments
