Alvis Cars – Business As Usual

The Alvis brand might be one you associate with cars of years gone by. It might also be a brand you associate with being past tense. But here’s the thing – only one of those statements is true. You see, the Alvis Car Company never went out of business. The company has always been there for owners, supplying parts and offering maintenance and restoration services. However, the car-making side of the business has been quiet for a long, long time. But it didn’t go away. What it did do, however, was go into a sort of hibernation. And now the sun is shining brightly upon its Kenilworth base of operations and the brand, at least from the standpoint of being a car maker, is stretching back into life. Alvis is awake from its slumber, and it’s making cars again. 

So what’s the story? Well, in short, Alvis stopped producing cars in the late 1960s. The demand simply wasn’t there, and given that Alvis had operations in other fields, it simply didn’t make sense to carry on building cars. However, it vowed that it would exist as an entity that would serve to keep existing cars on the road, there just wouldn’t be any new cars joining the lineup. From an administrative point of view, it meant all the holdings of Alvis would be transferred to the Red Triangle company, which still operates today. 

Now that word, holdings, it sounds so bureaucratic. Just a word on a form or press release. And in most cases, that’s exactly it. Not here though, because ‘holdings’ meant over 50,000 technical drawings on the original wax paper. It meant technical data sheets for every car ever produced, along with any and all correspondence between the customer and Alvis, and most excitingly of all, it meant tens of thousands of parts. Parts which have, up until recent years, simply been stored away. 

After we’ve done a lap of the bustling workshops, Alan Stote, who is now the custodian of Alvis after buying the company back in ‘94, keenly invites us to climb the stairs that lead to the company’s stores. When we breach the top floor, we can’t help but wonder how the building hasn’t fallen in on itself. There are thousands of parts of every description, and significant parts at that. Gear sets, pistons, cylinder heads, pumps, bolts, grilles, panels, brackets, exhausts, engine blocks, oil pumps, fuel pumps, water pumps, radiators… the list goes on. There are enough parts up here to build several Alvis cars. Which is handy, because that’s exactly what Alan and the team at Alvis are doing. 

Yes, the parts are there to serve and ultimately, save the existing cars. But with such a vast array in stock, it would be remiss of Alvis to not bolt them all together to create a new old car. Alvis is, to use its own words, still making cars as they used to be made. 

The idea stems from Alan. He’s lucky enough to own a collection of Alvis cars covering most if not all the bases of what the company has done in the past. These cars are the key. The mechanical side of things is easy, but the bodies, well, they’re a different challenge. Happily though, Alan has been able to lend his original cars to the cause. Each car has been painstakingly scanned using cutting-edge 3D laser-mapping technology. From these scans, the dimensions of each car can be fed into a machine which then goes on to send the information to a cutting machine in a more instructional format. From there, a wooden buck is made, on which the skilled panelbeaters can mould and tease new metal into a once familiar shape. For more intricate areas, such as the headlights, grilles and tail light arrangements, the sections are 3D printed in full scale, and from these printed models, metalworkers can once again create panels. It’s a perfect coming together of modern technology and traditional values. 

So what are the cars? Are they recreations? No, they’re continuations. Alvis has never been away, it just stopped making cars for sixty years. As such, this Continuation series is exactly that. The cars will be built with sequential chassis numbers from the last to be built all those years ago. The engine blocks for some 3.0 models will be from original stock, as will the chassis in some cases. The only changes to the cars is the inclusion of electronic ignition, modern management and fuel injection. Other than that, these cars will be entirely traditional and in keeping with the cars of yesteryear. Though in a weird twist, these modern day classics will wear new registration numbers – they’re new cars after all. 

Alan and the team have worked with VOSA from day one so as to ensure these bespoke, limited run cars are built to satisfy every standard set for them. Quality is a huge driving factor here, this isn’t just a quick cash-in on an old name. Alvis was a brand synonymous with incredibly high quality and craftsmanship, and that rings true today. And not only that, there is the consideration that this project is fuelled by Alan’s lifelong passion for the brand – he won’t see sub-par cars leaving the workshop. That’s simply not an option. 

As for the cars themselves, there is a carefully chosen range available. From the later three-litre Graber cars, available in fixed-head, cabriolet and drop head coupe guise through to cars from the ‘30s such as the Lancefield, Bertelli and Vanden Plas, all of which are powered by the Alvis 4.3 170bhp straight-six engine. Something, then, for every discerning driver. 

Forgotten and destitute, old cars still provide crucial information and measurements

What Alan, Red Triangle and Alvis are doing is nothing short of magnificent. This isn’t a trendy cash-in like other brands seem to be so keen on of late. Alvis isn’t trying to be fashionable or cool. It’s just being Alvis. It’s picking up from where it left off, doing what it did oh so very well back in the day. This is the true definition of a Continuation Series, because these cars are being built to keep the name alive, but also to be driven and enjoyed. There are no ‘track only’ or ‘not road legal’ caveats here (looking at you, Aston). There are just traditional, hand-made cars that are to be enjoyed. Built as they used to be made, but today.