Author: alvisarchive

It is nearly seven years since we issued our first leaflet with a vision for 2020 and we have already achieved much of what we set out to do:

• on 10th September 2018 the Alvis Archive Trust was registered as a charity, number 1179868
• we have been resident at Bowcliffe Hall with the Collection since May 2017, open to visitors
• the website has over 1,000 Followers from all over the world
• our programme of digitisation continues to record more history from period photographs and films
• we continue to receive donations of material and financial support
• we continue to provide archive information to enquirers about Alvis products with the help of our Consultant Historians, Wayne Brooks and Dave Culshaw together with frequent items of news from Coen van der Weiden.
  

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A new page Diary lists the events to look forward to in the coming months but in the near future look for the ALVIS sign with:

Wayne Brooks at AACA Hershey Meet, October 10-13, spaces CZ 24, 25, 26 in the South Chocolate Field and

Steve Horne at the Lancaster NEC Classic Car Show, November 9-11.

A new page Duxford 1989 has over 70 new photos of the 1989 International Alvis Weekend .

A new page Education and Training  reports on the Alvis course being held at Bicester today and tomorrow.

In September, following a request for a Parts Catalogue for the Speed 20 SB we discovered that it was not among the many items available to download for members of the AOC from http://www.alvisoc.org.

We have now added a scanned PDF version as the late Nick Walker had provided one from his collection. It is on the page Speed 20 SB

Nick Simpson has sent us a link to a video of his Speed 20 cruising in the Luberon, now added to the page Alflix

Additions have been made to the page Recent Donations

These include a Programme from 1939.

Several trophies have been donated by the current owners of the well known ARB 14 Ron Buck TA14 which are on their way to Bowcliffe.

The W O Bentley Memorial Fund has kindly sent some photos of Alvis in their collection two of which are known to still exist and their owners were pleased to receive copies. But where is the third one – click Speed 25?

We were glad to have a caption on one of our photos challenged as it meant we received an up to date picture to add to the collection. Photo 2-74-1 has accordingly been reassigned to chassis 4013 thanks to scrutiny by Dave Culshaw and comparison with 2-76-4 which it is now alongside in the 1920s Album.

A Graber TC108G took first prize not only in the British late post-war class in The Warren Concours at Woodham Mortimer but best car out of over 200 cars.

The Warren Concours event has many of the same judges as at Hampton Court Concours where only two weeks ago George Butlin’s Alvis Speed 25 also won a club trophy and was also displayed at RAC , Pall Mall until a week ago.

In Switzerland, the last Graber also made a star appearance at Grand Basel two weeks ago.

Steve Horne reports:

I was in contact with the organisers of the Hampton Court Concours of Elegance last Autumn and again this Spring, principally to arrange AOC participation in 2019 and 2020 as the celebratory 100 years of Alvis.

Being reminded that we could nominate a candidate for the Inter-Club Concours on Friday 31^st August 2018, we took up the challenge and promised we would provide an entry by July. Some firm requests by the South East Section did not easily bring up a short-list, but George Butlin was persuaded that his 1938 Alvis Speed 25 Drophead – coupe by Charlesworth, substantially modified during its construction by Hoopers, definitely needed an airing and a good polish.

George was left to his frenetic preparations and to finalise the details of his entry ‘By invitation’, direct with the organising committee. Thankfully, he had prepared a most suitable resume of the car’s history with some fine references to the Hooper connection, its wartime exploits and political canvassing in the post-war years prior to George’s ownership and of course there is no-one better able to describe with passion the intricacies of the Speed 25 model and his own car in particular.

As an Alvis Owner Club nominated entry, George entered alongside a huge array of immaculate and very distinguished marques with equally important historical significance, so it says much for the quality of the restoration and his constant upkeep, that the panel of selected Royal Automobile Club judges decided that his Alvis Speed 25 should be the RAC Club Trophy winner.

This huge accolade will be followed by presentation of the car in the Rotunda at The RAC Club in Pall Mall during the coming weeks, where George and Annie will have further opportunities to represent the Alvis marque, and the Speed Models amongst other exhibits, and no doubt the 1929 Mercedes Benz S-Type , ex-Earl Howe, which won the distinguished Pegasus trophy in the 60 limited Private Entry class, which will be the highlights on show to the motoring press.

A rare Alvis never registered with the AOC had success at Pebble Beach this year.

First delivered to the Maharajah of Mayurbhanj it has remained in India and a photo of its current state can be found at number 22 on Pebble Beach 2018

A date for your 2019 diary is Friday 14th June when the Bowcliffe British Car Concours takes place, featuring Alvis and Bentley.

This is the start of the AOC International Weekend based at York.

On 15th June the Trust will hold an Open Day at our Hycilla office. Invitations and booking forms will follow later in the year.

Grand Basel was not a Concours but featured the last Alvis made, click Graber TF21

We are pretty good at answering car related questions, but even with the help of ex-Alvis employees we were not able to answer the following two questions – can you help?

From Keith Roberts:

Q. Having long been an enthusiast of Alvis military vehicles I was pleased to find your web page. My interest falls between automobiles and the armoured vehicles of Alvis, to be exact my interest relates to the Alvis-Unipower trucks. Do you have records related to the MH-660 or MH-8875 trucks produced in the 1990s and if not, can you suggest where such information may exist? Many thanks for any help you can give.

A. Martin Wickham says the design work was done by Unipower at their Greenford site and they were built in the Walsgrave factory. The vehicles went into service with the Royal Engineers, and their museum at Chatham may well be the place to seek further information. We will ask our Followers if they have any information on these vehicles.

Neil Millington found this link to Unipower history

Also…..

From: John Hay-Heddle

Something over 50 years ago I read an article in “Autocar” I think. It was about the work of an emigre French aerodynamicist who came to Britain in WWII to escape the Nazis. He had a theory about using a specially designed exhaust system to boost the power and fuel efficiency of aero engines. The Government was sufficiently interested as to allot him an ALVIS LEONIDES engine to experiment with. He designed and kitted it out with tuned exhaust pipes – one for each cylinder – which looked very like those designed by Walter Kaaden for racing 2 stroke motorcycles. The article reported that he obtained a 10% or better increase in power output and an approximately equal improvement in fuel efficiency.

At the time of the work described and of the writing of the article, there were no electronic aids to perform the calculations needed, nor to test the results of these calculations.  The calculations had to be performed with pencil and paper using slide-rule and log-tables, aided and abetted by blood, toil, tears and sweat and many gallons of midnight oil.

Eventually, satisfied that his calculations, he made up his prototype system.  For the 9 cylinder engine it required nine separate exhaust pipes.  Because this was difficult, time consuming and expensive, and because there was no means of performing mathematical modelling of the interplay between all the salient dimensions, the resulting pipes were all built like trombones; adjustable in all salient dimensions.  For weeks, if not months, he carefully adjusted all the dimensions against each other and recorded the results until he came up with an optimised set of dimensions.

These produced: –

1. A useful (10% from memory?) increase in power output
2. A useful reduction in fuel consumption per unit of power produced (again about 10% from memory.) In other words one got an extra 65 BHP from the same fuel consumption as observed in the unmodified engine.
3. A stunning reduction in noise level.  It was reported that with the motor running at full power one could easily hear the tappets working.  This would have been immensely useful if used on an aircraft like the Westland Lysander employed for inserting and evacuating S.O.E. operatives into and out of occupied France.

What then happened bordered on farce.  He reported his findings to the Ministry who sent assessors down to examine his system.  It seems that, not being content simply to test his optimised set-up, they insisted on playing with the adjustability of the dimensions.  The result was that they so stuffed the operation of the motor that it simply would not run!  Our Frenchman then berated them in lurid French – “Vous foux, imbecilles Anglais” being among the more repeatable terms of abuse he used for their stupidity – and he stormed out “In a truly Gallic huff!”  (The words in quotes are exactly as used in the article.)

What subsequently happened to the Frenchman and his work is unclear, except that the latter was never acted upon.  That is until Walter Kaaden independently resurrected his work 20 years later for use on racing two-stroke motorcycles.

I think you will agree it is a fascinating story, and worth the while of the Alvis Archive to resurrect if you can find it.  Please feel free to edit my account and add it to the archive as an un-documented recollection – even though I can personally vouch for the accuracy of the general thrust of the story as a retired research scientist.

We always appreciate receiving old photographs of Alvis cars when they were new and not so new which help complete their history. Some interesting ones have come our way recently.

We also like viewers who appreciate seeing the photos we post and make contact with us. Mike Newbery who joined the AOC in 1965 spotted a Crested Eagle he owned and after exchanging a few emails he sent some period shots of 12893 Crested Eagle which in part ended up in a special, and some photos of the other cars he owned. 12893 Alvery – see comment from Charles Mackonochie

12082 Speed 20 Lancefield which was of interest to the current owner

Mike also owned 14426, a Speed 25 now in chassis form with an AOC member, 14639 the well known, ex Ken Day, Speed 25 FLP 75 currently for sale and TA21 24919, MON 647 which may have been scrapped but was offered for sale in 1997.

W.E. Challice was the Alvis agent in Cannington, Somerset.  His daughter, Wendy Lamacraft who owns a TD21 and a 12/50, sent TD21 Model Secretary Jonathan Huggett several photos from her personal album of post-war cars when they were new.

Eileen Goddin confirms that the photo showing a maroon Fourteen Saloon is of chassis 23763, which left the Factory 23/05/1950, one of the later Mulliners, Body number M1739, delivered to W.E. Challice. The first owner shown was Kraft Productions of Cornborough Place, Bridgewater, Somerset, wicker product manufacturers. Where is it now?

Malcolm Kindell says “This is a great piece of Alvis history. The second production car, which I believe was one of the cars sent to Geneva Motor Show in 1950 as either the show car or the demonstration car. Later used for road test reports in motoring magazines in the 1950s.”Note the spare wheel tray on this early model.

Wendy had been browsing on the Francis Frith online database of historic photos and discovered a TD21 on this image

W. E. Challice is recorded as the agent to whom the TD21 chassis 26741 (8279 RW) was delivered.  Interestingly it had previously spent about nine months as a works car and appeared in publicity material. Last heard of with the late Ted Halliday it has not been licensed since 2006. Where is it now?

Lastly, FVC 897D is a 1966 TF21 chassis 27375…..

Could the man of the left be Rowland Simmons?

Last heard of in the Netherlands in 1994, where is it now?

Built in 1948 the Goodwin Special is now back in competitive trim.

Alex Simpson drove it in the Chateau Impney sprint recently, coming 7th with a best time of 47.3. – for a YouTube video click on Chateau Impney

See also Goodwin Special for Brian Ledwith’s 1965 Bulletin article.

For those less confident driving old cars….

Alvis Car Care and Maintenance course: Tuesday 2nd October and Wednesday 3rd October 2018