1920s – VINTAGE

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I asked Alan Stote about Geoff Ross’ AOC Bulletin article stating the date of 22nd July 1920 as when the first car, chassis 6001, was sold. He confirmed that 6003 and 6004 were also delivered to Jones of Cardiff on 15th and 17th July. However it is not clear if these are to customers. Greg Wrapson commented – “I haven’t actually done much work on the earliest cars, and I’m not sure that I can tell you much that you don’t already know. Mr Ross makes some interesting statements – eg that the first 10/30 was ‘made’ on 31/3/1920, which one feels would have taken some doing. Although no documentary confirmation has yet come to light, it must be very probable that the prototype chassis was built and tested late in 1919, and Alvis was listed as one of the makes ‘available on the British market’ in listings from November 1919. As the Morgan body was a new style, the body arrangements would no doubt have taken some time to sort out, and 31st March was the date that the completed car 6001 was returned from Morgan to Alvis. Alan is quite right, of course, 6003 (HP 2346) is recorded as the first production car to be completed, returned from Morgan on 13th July 1920 and despatched to Jones on 15th, and 6004 was the second, returned on 15th and despatched on 17th. Three others are recorded as despatched during July.  Regrettably, we have no information as to the first owners of 6003 and 6004 – I guess the Coventry records might reveal something in the case of HP 2346. Leighton Buzzard was where Morgan & Co’s works were situated, which they had taken over in 1899 from another coachbuilder named W King. During WW1 the works were taken over by Vickers for aircraft production. In 1920 Morgan was taken over by R E Jones Ltd, which is presumably a combination of circumstances which led to the links with Alvis. It must have been pretty inconvenient for Alvis to have the only coachbuilders 60 or so miles from Coventry, and this, together with the design limitations of the Morgan ‘Zephyr’ system were part of the reason why Alvis moved to local coachbuilders such as Charlesworth and Cross & Ellis.

click 1926 12/50 and other collections for more vintage Alvis