Prototype V12 casting marks.Whilst researching the people, places and events in the story of the one-and-only XJ13, I came across the relatively unknown story of the West Yorkshire Foundry. Who are they ... do I hear you ask? For the best part of 100 years the Foundry was responsible for the casting of cylinder heads and blocks for the British automotive industry. Have a look on practically any clyinder head or block made in the UK in the last 60 years and the chances are you will see the initials "WYF" cast into the block and/or head. The following initials are proudly displayed on my prototype quad-cam engine block:
SOHC V12 casting marks.The West Yorkshire Foundry emblem can be seen as an intertwined "W" and "Y". The other characters refer to the material of construction (LM8), Jaguar's experimental number identification (XW 5014) and a Jaguar Part Number (C2020). If you look at more recent Jaguar blocks, the West Yorkshire Foundry initials are even more prominently displayed as shown on this SOHC V12 block from the 1970s:
The West Yorkshire Foundry has had an association with Jaguar from the days of the SS Jaguars right up to the first years of the 21st Century - not only supplying castings for Jaguar's production cars but also one-offs and small runs for things such as the initial run of 10 castings for Jaguar's "XJ6" quad-cam V12 engine project (not to be confused with their later saloon of the same name) for their planned return to Le Mans. The supplied bare castings for the racing engine project were delivered to Coventry Climax for final fettling before being delivered to Jaguar's Experimental and Competition Departments for assembly and installation.
"Watch almost any programme or film on TV and you will see something that was made by the West Yorkshire Foundry - Aston Martin, Rolls-Royce, Jaguar, Rover and many more.
Having found almost nothing in print about the West Yorkshire Foundry I set about trying to learn a little more about them and their association with Jaguar. I had visions of perhaps stumbling across casting patterns and records of correspondence between the Foundry and Jaguar - perhaps even from the times of Jaguar's Le Mans successes in the 1950s through to the XJ13 project itself. These initial hopes were soon dashed when I discovered the Foundry had quietly closed in 2004 with almost no trace of its former existence to be found. What had happened to all those moulds, patterns, drawings and historic correspondence? It seemed that nothing had survived. here are some images of how things look today and previously:
I continued my search and found the following:
The book, "Meltdown" and DVD is available from:
Heads Together Productions, The Media Centre, 7 Northumberland Street, Huddersfield HD1 1RL
Leeds Industrial Museum, Armley Mills, Canal Road, Leeds, LS12 2UF T: 0113 263 7861
As now with earlier pictures superimposed
