Author: alvisarchive

An invitation a few weeks ago to a small celebration of the Alvis marque in its centenary year was readily accepted as it was to be held at the Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall. The publicity for the Continuation Series of models was also gaining momentum as was the success in gaining overseas orders for several cars. It was no great surprise to later discover there would be several guests for the champagne reception and during the week of the celebration the Bertelli 4.3 was to be on show in the  Rotunda.

However, what Alan Stote kept secret was the suprise that four historians with over 200 years of Alvis ownership between them, were to be present, including Wayne Brooks from Pennsylvania.

During an evening of fine dining we also enjoyed the company of Michael Hicks, Neil Jones and Ian Simpson from Red Triangle and Alistair Pugh who undertook the digital reverse engineering of the coachwork.

Alan also presented us with newly reproduced items from a hundred years ago.Who knows what the next hundred years of Alvis will be like, but for now there seems to be no shortage of enthusiasm for the marque.

Our thanks and appreciation go to Alan Stote for his dedication to the marque and its history.

Much of our historic material has been sourced from Autocar over the years and like many I first saw an Alvis on the pages of that magazine. The Illiffe Press were early owners of Alvis cars. Now, Alvis is in the news again, click

Autocar visits Alvis

Alvis, Bentley and Mini were featured this year for their centenaries and 60th birthday, with the older marques gracing the castle grounds.

For more photos, click on Swiss Meetings

Steve Horne reports: On Sunday 22^nd September 5 Alvis braved the elements for a sunny but showery day out at The Warren Concours and Supercar Show, Woodham Mortimer, Essex, Sadly we lost one participant due to over-zealous preparations that morning, but our turn -out included the 4.3 Vanden Plas of Jeremy Coleclough, The Ivins’ TE 21, Steve Horne’s Speed 20 SA Vanden Plas, Jon Tracey’s 12/70 and Edmund Waterhouse’s Speed 25 Charlesworth saloon. The latter won the Alvis Centenary Class, alongside other celebratory classes for 30/98 Vauxhall and Bentley (100 Years) and the Mini ( 60 Years), and hence went forward to compete against all other Class winners, where a 1903 De Dion Bouton took 2^nd and 1^st prize Overall went to a 1933 Invicta 4 ½  S-Type Low-chassis.

As most of the 13 Concours Classes were limited to 5-6 cars of one marque, or up to 14 cars in mixed British, European , Racing/Sports or Supercars, our Alvis marque was well represented and we had pride-of-place at the top of the fairways. We were even lucky to have demonstrations of a 9-cylinder Leonides radial aero-engine, dated 1952 and which had only run 2189 hrs of commercial use,  together with Merlin V12 Mark 50-27 of 1943; both marked another feature of Alvis production, and their contracts to overhaul Rolls-Royce engines during the War and, as planned, are also signed up to join other Alvis radial engines at Coombe Abbey, Coventry in 2020. Not a bad start to our Centenary.

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Steve also reports on the Concours of Elegance at Hampton Court 6-8 Sept 2019

A selection of photos from the British Car Meeting in Mollis is now on the page Swiss Meetings.

The next one is on Saturday 5th October in Morges again featuring Alvis in the grounds of the chateau.

We were pleased to welcome Friends from Kent, Gloucestershire, Cheshire and Lincolnshire to Bowcliffe for our first “Lunch with….” on Wednesday. The next one is on Wednesday October 16th, so leave a reply if you would like to join us.

We are very pleased to announce our first “Lunch with…..” event in the Drivers Club at Bowcliffe Hall on Wednesday 18^th September.

The day starts with a the opportunity to browse the archives in Hycilla with the archivists over a cup of coffee and to meet Dr Adrian Padfield who has written the biography of Capt G T Smith-Clarke who is best known in Alvis circles for his work on the Grand Prix cars.

As a retired anaesthetist, Adrian has also been fascinated by Smith-Clarke’s work in medicine and other scientific fields and will give a talk over a lingering lunch. If you would like to attend please leave a reply below and we will provide further details.

For contemporary reports, click Grand Prix cars

One of our contributors has pointed out that it is not obvious you can make a comment on any photo that appears on the website, simply by clicking on the photo and scrolling down to “write a comment” and POST COMMENT.

A new page of photos has been added, without captions, of the 2001 AOC Jubilee event at Blenheim Palace, when over 300 Alvis gathered including the largest ever group of Graber cars driving from Switzerland, marking not only 50 years of the AOC but 50 years since Graber exhibited a 3-litre at Geneva, thus starting a partnership that survived until 1967.

In typical Julian Collins style, this was comprehensively reported in Bulletin 471, original copies of which are available from the archives together with the professional video of the event co-starring our own Chris Taylor commentating on the assembled collection.

Go to 2001 Blenheim Palace AOC Jubilee and feel free to comment.