By Colin Wood
Oct 6, 2021
|
Alvis,
Continuation Cars
Photography Courtesy the Alvis Car Company Limited
No, not the car rental people. We’re talking about the Alvis Car Company, founded in England in 1919.
Yes, the carmaker got absorbed by Rover in the mid-‘60s, but the company has recently been revived and now offers brand-new versions of its cars.
The catch: They're continuation cars, and they're being hand-built in very limited quantities–25 for each model.
Built “how they used to be made,” Alvis offers five different models:
Vanden Plas:
Bertelli:
Lancefield:
Park Ward:
Graber:
Depending on the model, power comes from either a 3.0- or 4.3-liter inline-six made from original drawings. Updated tech, like fuel injection, is used to make the cars emission-compliant.
The Alvis website doesn’t mention pricing specifics, but a quick internet search reveals that you can expect to pay over $400,000 for an example.
So, someone can. I can't. At least not if I want to continue to provide my wife with the luxuries that she's become accustomed to. I never should have let her get used to three meals a day and indoor plumbing. Too bad though. I'd really like a new Vanden Plas.
$400,000!
Just no.
I'll need a Vanden Plas and a Bertelli. The weather can be changeable, you know.
It is prety, but, that kind of coin presents a bunch of options.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I had no idea you could still buy them, and I sort of have a link to the Alvis culture. My late fathers close long time business associate and friend back to the late 60's was a guy named Idris Francis who was well known in the UK Alvis community. Back in the late 70's he'd commute to work in Feltham (an inner suburb of London) in his concourse winning Speed 25 Charlesworth. I remember him driving his TD home from having the interior completly retrimmed and getting caught in a massive thunderstorm before he had put the soft top back on! Below is a pic of him and the Speed 25 Charlesworth I found on line, he also had another Speed 25 saloon. He had various other Alvis (plural, Alvus or Alvii, not sure) including a TD and TE both dropheads. Those cars often appeared in TV shows during and after his ownership. He was a very kind guy who did a lot fot my mother after my father passed. He passed himself a couple of years ago.
Also for LeCarrie fans Jim Predeaux drove a TD 21 in both the book and movie of TTSS, although the car in the movie was not one of Idris's.
BTW, one of the death knells for Alvis as a consumer automobile company came when they were bought buy Rover who needed their casting capacity for the Bucik/Rover V8 alloy blocks.
Knew a guy that owned a TD21. He had applied for and received a license plate that said "PRASLEY"
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