Category: News

British Car Meeting in Morges

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

Pride of place for the oldest Alvis from 1925, Ian Sykes had driven from the UK in his TE 12/50 to take part.

For more photos, click on Swiss Meetings

Steve Horne reports: On Sunday 22nd 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 2nd and 1st 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

 

Swiss celebrations

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.

Grand Prix cars and iron lungs

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

 

How to comment on photos

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.

August additions

New photos have been added to the site covering some of the car models, coachbuilders and products together with some press cuttings of “Used Cars on the Road” and Road Tests.

The owner of this 1953 TA21 Tickford in the 1960s is keen to find if it still exists.

Our records only go up to 1974 when LER 834 was in Naples, Italy. Does anyone know where it is now?

 

Did you know Alvis manufactured colour printers?

A new page Printers has more photos and a video link.

 

To find the new photos and articles click on the following which all open on new tabs so you can return to this post:

1920s – VINTAGE  

TD21 : 1958-1963

Vanden Plas 

Charlesworth

Crested Eagle  

Silver Eagle

Which Australian Speed 20 is this with wipers at the top of the screen and twin side mounts? On the reverse is written Gordon Nicol of Rose Bay, New South Wales but was he the owner?
Wayne Brooks found this photo circa 1955, of 11993 with Roy Clement at the wheel of his father, Toby Clement’s car, registration FP 101
Who is this with John Parkes?
Who is driving what, where and when? And what is on the scuttle? Tony Cox thinks it is definitely Racing Car No. 1. See Hull & Johnson, 2nd Ed, page 89 Plate 41. You can match the bonnet handle, gear lever and handbrake, bonnet strap, the alignment of the exhaust pipe, and the seam in the offside panel of the scuttle. The fact that it has a windscreen in your pic does not rule this out. That could have been added or removed at any time, and the car was much modified in other ways during this early period. I do not recognise the driver, but he is most probably either Tommy Simister, an agent who Alvis used to promote the performance of Alvis cars and to whom they sold this one, or Jack Linnell, who bought the car from Simister in September 1924.