Jowett Jupiters: tale of the unexpected

By Charlie Calderwood

| 9 Jan 2026

Classic & Sports Car – Jowett Jupiters: tale of the unexpected

Few cars have run counter to their maker’s reputation as starkly as the Jowett Jupiter, a model that transformed the image of the Yorkshire minnow when it was launched in 1950.

High-tech, engineered contrary to convention and going on to stellar competition success, its talents still echo powerfully 75 years on – as exemplified by the three very different Jupiters here today.

Badged as the Javelin Jupiter in its first year, the sports car owes much to Gerald Palmer’s 1947 Javelin four-door, which had already begun to change the reputation of the Bradford company.

From Rallye Monte-Carlo to Le Mans, the Jowett Jupiter brought motorsport success to the Yorkshire-based car maker

In marked contrast to the staid saloons and vans Jowett had built before the war (and latterly continued with post-WW2), Palmer’s Javelin offered an overhead-valve engine, a monocoque chassis, independent front suspension, rack-and-pinion steering, aerodynamic styling and even metallic paint years ahead of many of its rivals.

Understandable, then, that enthusiasts saw potential in the high-tech saloon.

Laurence Pomeroy, the editor of The Motor, ERA owner Leslie Johnson and racer Anthony Hume (who had raced a Javelin at Spa) conspired to put the idea to Jowett in 1949.

Perhaps contrary to Jowett’s reputation, the Jupiter’s dynamic alacrity and confidence-inspiring agility are immediately apparent on the road

Once the manufacturer gave the go-ahead, Johnson imported one of Austria’s finest auto-engineers, Robert Eberan-Eberhorst, to ERA’s Dunstable workshop to work on the sports car’s chassis.

While he was a slightly leftfield appointment at first glance, the job at Jowett aligned remarkably well with the former aristocrat’s past experience.

Eberhorst had worked on the Auto Union streamliners, initially under noted torsion-bar fan Ferdinand Porsche, later designing the Typ D, before wartime work that included the infamous Tiger Tank – again sprung with torsion bars.

The Jowett Jupiter’s rear-hinged clamshell is great for engine access

Fleeing Dresden at the end of the war, he found himself in the most famous sawmill in Austria, the Gmünd workshop where Ferry Porsche was designing the flat-four-powered 356, and it was from there that Johnson plucked him to work on both the Jowett and his G-type Formula Two car.

It was a set of familiar components for Eberhorst when he set about designing the Jupiter’s chassis.

Expected production volumes were too low for a sheet-steel monocoque as used by the Javelin, so Eberhorst created a separate, tubular-steel chassis that still mirrored the Javelin with its 1.5-litre flat-four engine mounted far forward and torsion bars springing all four wheels – although now with adjustable anti-roll bars front and rear.

The Jowett Jupiter’s neat wing protectors

Other points of diversion from the saloon included a hotter cam, increased compression and twin carbs on the water-cooled boxer engine, to boost power output from 50 to 60bhp.

Jowett’s in-house design man Reg Korner styled the aluminium body for the new chassis.

It provided some resemblance to the Javelin, with pronounced wings and a bull nose, but stopped short of mimicking the saloon’s grille.

Thanks to its separate chassis, the Jupiter’s front end is one giant, rear-hinged clamshell that gives superb service access, as opposed to the relatively narrow opening of a Javelin.

The Jowett Jupiter has a fine wooden dashboard and column change in its well-appointed cabin

No doubt it is the Jupiter’s bodywork that has proved most divisive to enthusiasts.

Its long, sweeping rear is undoubtedly pretty, while its front has charm despite a bonnet line that is puzzlingly high considering just how low the flat-four sits in the chassis – the marriage of the two can be odd from certain angles.

With the hood raised, the car’s exceptionally tall and narrow side windows accentuate a cabin with a squashed profile, similar to the Daimler Conquest two/three-seater dropheads.

Roof down it works much better, although it’s remarkable just how much of a Jupiter’s interior you can see while tailing one on the road, so low is the rear scuttle. The later, and rare, Mk1a did sport a slightly taller rear end with the addition of an opening boot.

The Jowett Jupiter has a discreet clock in the speedometer

Garth Wright’s immaculately restored 1953 Jupiter, in Old English White paint that belies the untraditional make-up under its aluminium skin, represents the model as most left the Bradford factory.

It is well appointed inside and out, reflecting a price-tag twice that of a contemporary MG TD, with lots of brightwork including large wing protectors behind the doors.

Inside is a leather-trimmed interior with a polished wooden dashboard, and it’s well-equipped.

Unusually for an early 1950s British roadster, the windows are winding, there’s a cigar lighter and a radio, and the dashboard’s various switches are capped in white Bakelite.

This 1953 Jowett Jupiter is close to factory-standard spec

If Jowett was trying to recreate the ambience of a private members’ club lounge, complete with the high-spec, vacuum-tube wireless, it succeeded inside the Jupiter.

In a 1950s convertible market that had clear demarcation between the concept of the tourer and the roadster, this made the Jupiter something of a segment-bending car.

Its mechanical specification and dimensions read like a sports car’s, but its level of trim – and the column gearshift inherited from the Javelin – spoke of a touring convertible.

Happily, it’s the sporting underpinnings that shine through on the road.

This coachbuilt Jowett Jupiter was created in fixed-head form to satisfy revised Rallye Monte-Carlo rules

When John Bolster drove the new Jupiter for Autosport, he wrote that he was ‘utterly dumbfounded’ by its cornering ability.

The effect is not quite as dramatic to modern sensibilities, but the strong fundamentals of the Jupiter’s low centre of gravity and rigid chassis still prove entertaining.

You can lean on a Jupiter in the corners, where it adopts its angle of roll and holds predictably.

Even more impressive is the flat-four engine: it’s torquey, feeling brisk for just 60bhp, with a sound somewhere between a Volkswagen Beetle and a Subaru.

This was one of four Farr-bodied Jowett Jupiters built

It emits a fairly normal engine roar from the front of the car, clearly distinguishable from the characteristic pulsing burble emanating from the exhaust.

Happier to rev than most contemporary in-line ‘fours’, the charismatic engine encourages the driver to hang on to gears even at fairly low speeds.

Fitted with relatively soft torsion bars, there is an impressive level of refinement: the car resists the rattles and shakes of so many other roadsters, providing a reasonably comfortable ride.

Engine noise in the cabin prevents it from feeling truly luxurious, but it’s a car you’d more happily take on a touring holiday than other 1950s British sportsters.

The bulge in this Jowett Jupiter’s bootlid accommodates a vertically stowed spare wheel

That’s reflected in the sole modification to Garth’s car: a longer final-drive ratio to calm the gearing, at the expense of some acceleration.

The softness of the set-up does rob some zing from the steering, but at cross-country speeds the Jowett loses nothing to rivals despite its greater comforts.

With such talents and a separate chassis that could be easily built upon, the Jupiter proved popular with coachbuilders and roughly 10% of the chassis produced were sold bare.

Farina built four cars, but British firms dominated. MTJ 300 is one of four that were constructed by Blackburn-based JE Farr & Son.

This Jowett Jupiter’s cabin was optimised for carrying spares, including on the back seats

Greater impetus for coachbuilt Jupiters, including for MTJ 300, came when entry restrictions for the 1952 Rallye Monte-Carlo were announced and a fixed roof was made mandatory.

Robert Ellison had won his class in a Jupiter in 1950, scoring sixth overall, and keen to repeat the success commissioned a Jupiter coupé in 1951.

Even long-time owner Sheila Rigg concedes that ‘Monty’, as it’s now known, is not a looker, instead built to maximise carrying capacity for spare parts and for ease of construction.

Its boot features a hastily shaped bulge to allow spare tyres to be stored vertically, and it is one of very few Jupiters with back seats – even if the rear is much more a cargo space thanks to the height of the seat squab.

The Jowett Jupiter’s bonnet is high, despite its low-slung flat-four

Although covered by wooden panelling during a restoration in the late 1980s, the Farr coupé’s barrel-like doors originally held tools and parts, too.

Ellison took the car on the 1952 Monte but didn’t achieve the same success, although a Farina-bodied Jupiter did score second in class and fifth overall that year.

The crudely built, aluminium-over-wood-frame body was far too heavy to be competitive, but Ellison nonetheless appreciated its strength when the car’s throttle stuck while driving in deep snow and he ended up down a ravine.

Had he been driving a standard-bodied Jupiter, as in the previous year, he would have almost certainly been killed.

Robert Ellison had MTJ 300 built for the 1952 Rallye Monte-Carlo, but a stuck throttle deposited him into a ravine, before oxen came to the rescue

Pulled out of the ravine by a team of oxen, the car was repaired before returning to the UK.

Lifelong Jowett enthusiast – and Sheila’s father – Frank Cooke bought it in 1985.

The Jupiter’s best rally result, an outright win, came in the 1951 Lisbon Rally in the hands of Joaquim Filipe Nogueira, but generally the Javelin proved the more successful rallying Jowett, including an RAC Rally victory in 1952.

In circuit racing, however, the Jupiter proved its worth against sports cars that on the showroom floor appeared better suited to competition in their traditionally spartan specifications.

This rally-ready Jowett Jupiter has an aluminium-over-wood-frame body

A factory works team achieved class wins at Le Mans in 1950, ’51 and ’52 – much to the initial bemusement of European onlookers who had barely heard of Jowett; the final victory came in the rebodied, cycle-winged Jupiter R1.

The R1 also won the Queen Catherine Montour Cup for 1.5-litre sports cars at New York’s Watkins Glen in 1951, while a standard Jupiter took its class in the RAC TT race in Northern Ireland that same year.

Inspired – and provided with eligibility – by these exploits, there is a small but committed group of historic racers running Jupiters today, and most of those are affiliated with the Jupiter Owners’ Auto Club, including Richard Gane.

The owner of three Jupiters, two Javelins and a Bradford van among other classic cars, Richard’s Jowett obsession started with a standard road car, but really took off with his desire to go racing in 2010.

The Jupiter racer’s modifications include a floor-mounted gearlever

“I had a friend who had been campaigning an AC Ace at the Le Mans Classic, and he’d sold as the Ace market soared,” says Richard.

Spotting his Jupiter in the workshop, and acknowledging that its chassis was not all that different from an Ace’s, said friend then asked: “Could we make a race car out of that?”

To build his 1953 racer Richard bought three Jupiters, including a complete car used as an initial testbed and the chassis now under his light-blue car.

He teamed up with friend Dave Harris to build the Jowett to a competitive spec.

This Jowett Jupiter’s race engine is torquey, but happy to rev

The Jupiter Owners’ Auto Club sold him a new aluminium crankcase, while custom-made rods, pistons and other internals have resulted in the engine making 115bhp on a rolling road.

Other alterations include a heavily modified gearbox, because Jowett transmissions are a known weak point, with a tendency to engage two ratios at once.

Richard fabricated a floor shift to allow more controlled changes, and has installed an overdrive – a rare modification, but he was able to find photographic evidence that they were used in period.

Removing weight is an obsession of co-builder Dave, who would saw off the end of every bolt once fitted.

‘In circuit racing the Jowett Jupiter proved its worth against sports cars that appeared much better suited to competition’

“We weighed the bucket of bolt ends and there were two kilos in there,” says Richard.

The spare-wheel compartment has been replaced by an air vent to reduce rear-end lift, and the rear wings have been subtly narrowed – all of which has contributed to a top speed clocked at 119mph along the Mulsanne Straight.

With the Jupiter’s motorsport pedigree far greater than its production numbers, Richard finds the entries roll in: he has raced at Le Mans four times, plus Spa, Goodwood and more.

“It does handle really well,” says Richard, who regularly ranks in the middle of the Plateau 2 pack at the Le Mans Classic and was impressed by fellow Jupiter racers Julian and Edward Crossley, who took third in class and 16th overall in 2025: “Look at how front-heavy it is and you think it can’t work, but it is neutral and you can steer it on the throttle on racing tyres.”

This Jupiter’s stripped-out door saves weight

That there aren’t more Jupiters in historic motorsport – just 901 were built, and roughly 400 are thought to remain in decent condition – can be blamed on Jowett’s collapse in 1955, when the company got stuck in a moment of overcapacity and botched an attempt at taking transmission production in-house.

Sadly, that denied us further Jupiters, including the R4, a successor built on a modified frame and with more modern-looking glassfibre bodywork.

Whether in further years of production or in the form of the R4, it’s tempting to ponder what could have happened had the Jupiter lasted into that golden era for British sports cars in the late 1950s and early ’60s.

Perhaps Stateside success would have followed, and the Jowett name could have rolled off the American tongue as easily as Triumph or MG.

The Jupiter was not only a refreshing change for Jowett, but also a beacon of bravery in Britain’s achingly conservative 1950s motor industry – one that was both reliable and competitive.

Images: Max Edleston

Thanks to: Noel Stokoe and the Jupiter Owners’ Auto Club

Factfile

Jowett Jupiter

Sold/number built 1950-’54/901
Construction tubular steel chassis, aluminium body over steel frame
Engine all-iron, ohv 1485cc flat-four, twin Zenith carburettors
Max power 60bhp @ 4500rpm
Max torque 84lb ft @ 3000rpm
Transmission four-speed manual, RWD
Suspension: front independent, by double wishbones rear live axle, trailing arms, Panhard rod; torsion bars, telescopic dampers, anti-roll bar f/r
Steering rack and pinion
Brakes drums
Length 14ft (4140mm)
Width 5ft 1in (1575mm)
Height 4ft 8in (1422mm)
Wheelbase 7ft 9in (2362mm)
Weight 1792lb (813kg)
0-60mph 18 secs
Top speed 86mph
Mpg 25
Price new £895 (1951)
Price now £15-40,000*