 the jowett javelin is an automobile that was produced from 1947 to 1953 by jowett cars ltd of idle, near bradford in england. the model went through five variants labelled pa to pe, each having a standard and "de luxe" option. the car was designed by gerald palmer during world war ii and was intended to be a major leap forward following the relatively staid designs of pre-war jowetts. just over 23,000 units were produced. ==powertrain== the flat four overhead valve engine of 1486&nbsp;cc with a compression ratio of 7.2:1 was water-cooled and had an aluminium block and wet cylinder liners. it developed  at 4100 rpm (52.5&nbsp;bhp in the case of the pe) giving the car a maximum speed of  and a 0- time of 13.4 seconds. two zenith carburettors were fitted and pa and pb versions had hydraulic tappets. the radiator was behind the engine. a four-speed gearbox with column change was used. early cars had gearboxes made by the henry meadows company, whilst the remainder of the cars had gearboxes made by jowett themselves. the decision to make the gearboxes in house proved to be a costly mistake for jowett.images of motoring: jowett by noel stokoe (isbn 0752417231) even though jowett had some experience in transmission manufacturing, the project went disastrously wrong; powertrainless bodies stacked up in the assembly line because of problems in the gearbox production. thumb|left|the horizontally opposed engine is very low immediately behind the grille and in front of the radiator {{cl
Automobiles_powered_by_boxer_engines Jowett_vehicles Vehicles_introduced_in_1947