Blue plaque, with inscription of doubtful accuracy, on former factory on Montgomery Street, Sparkbrook, Birmingham

Lanchester Motor Company was a car manufacturer based at Armourer Mills, Montgomery Street Birmingham, Great Britain. It ran from 1895-1955. The rights to the Lanchester brand name are now owned by Tata Motors of India, alongside Daimler and Rover, in addition to Land Rover and Jaguar. This article is about the British city. ... Tata Motors Limited, formerly known as TELCO (TATA Engineering and Locomotive Company), is Indias largest passenger automobile and commercial vehicle manufacturing company. ... Logo of Daimler Daimler (pronounced Dame-ler) has, since 1896, been the motor car marque of the former British Daimler Motor Company, based in Coventry. ... // Rover was a British automobile manufacturer and later a marque based at the former Austin Longbridge plant in Birmingham. ... Land Rover was the name of one of the first British civilian all-terrain utility vehicles, first produced by Rover in 1947. ... For other uses, see Jaguar (disambiguation). ...

History

The company was started by the three Lanchester brothers, Frederick, one of the most influential automobile engineers of the 19th and 20th century, George and Frank as the Lanchester Engine Company Ltd and registered in 1899. Frederick William Lanchester (October 23, 1868 - March 8, 1946) was an English polymath and engineer who made important contributions to automotive engineering, aerodynamics and co-invented the field of operations research. ...

Work on the first Lanchester car had been started in 1895, significantly designed from first principles as a car, not a horseless carriage, and it ran on the public roads in February or March 1896.^[1] It had a single cylinder 1306 cc engine with the piston having two connecting rods to separate crankshafts and flywheels rotating in opposite directions giving very smooth running. A two cylinder engine was fitted to the same chassis in 1897 and a second complete car was built alongside it. This led on to the first production cars in 1900 when six were made^[1] as demonstrators. These had two cylinder, 4033 cc, horizontal air cooled engines, retaining the twin crankshaft design. Steering was by side lever not wheel. The gearbox used Epicyclic gearing. The first cars were sold to the public in 1901. All bodies were made by external coachbuilders until 1903 when a body department was set up and up to 1914 most cars carried Lanchester built bodies.^[1]. In 1904, in spite of a full order book, the company ran out of money and receivers were called in. The company was re-organised and registered as the Lanchester Motor Company later that year.^[1] The automotive Brass Era is the first period of automotive manufacturing, named for the prominent brass fittings used during this time for such things as lights and radiators. ... Epicyclic gearing is used here to increase output speed. ...

The 1904 models had 2470 cc, four cylinder, water cooled, overhead valve engines featuring pressure lubrication, very unusual at the time, and were now mounted with the epicyclic gearbox between the front seats rather than centrally resulting a design with the driver sitting well forwards and no bonnet. Six cylinder models joined the line up in 1906. The specification started to become more conventional with wheel steering as an option from 1908, becoming standard from the end of 1911 ^[1] and pedals and gear lever replacing the original two lever system of gear changing. George Lanchester was now in charge, Frederick having resigned in 1913, and the engine moved further forward to a conventional position in the sporting, side valve, 5.5 litre six cylinder Forty but very few were made before the outbreak of World War I. Frank Lanchester ran the London sales office.

During the war the company made artillery shells and some aircraft engines but some vehicle production continued with the Lanchester 4x2 Armoured Cars built on the Lanchester 38hp chassis for use by the Royal Naval Air Service on the Western Front. Lanchester Armoured Car was a British armoured car produced during the First World War. ... Personnel of No 1 Squadron RNAS in late 1914 The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) was the air arm of the Royal Navy until near the end of World War I, when it merged with the British Armys Royal Flying Corps (RFC) to form the Royal Air Force. ... Western Front was a term used during the First and Second World Wars to describe the contested armed frontier between lands controlled by Germany to the East and the Allies to the West. ...

After the first World war the company adopted a single model policy and the Forty was re-introduced with a 6.2 litre overhead cam engine in unit with a 3 speed gearbox still using epicyclic gears and a worm drive rear axle. It was very expensive, dearer than a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost and to maintain production a smaller car, the Twenty One joined the range in 1924. This had a 3.1 litre, six cylinder engine, now with removable cylinder head, mated to a four speed conventional gearbox and four wheel brakes. It grew to the 3.3 litre Twenty Three in 1926. The Forty was finally replaced by the Thirty with straight eight 4.4 litre engine in 1928. A further series of armoured cars were made in 1927 with six wheel version of the Forty chassis.

For 1928 there was George's last design, a 4446 cc straight-8 but only 126 were made before the economic depression effectively killed demand.

In January 1931 the bank called in the company's overdraft, in spite of it only being £38,000, and forced the directors to arrange a merger.^[1]

Daimler

Lanchester Ten

In 1931 The company merged with the British Daimler company, who were owned by BSA and production moved to their Coventry factory. George was kept on as a senior designer and Frank became the Lanchester sales director. The great years for Lanchester were now over and the models were generally overlooked by the company in favour of Daimler models. The first new offering, still designed by George Lanchester, was the Eighteen with hydraulic brakes and a Daimler fluid flywheel. The Ten of 1933 was an upmarket version of the BSA 10. The pre war Fourteen of 1937, known also as the Roadrider, was similar to the Daimler DB17 with its 1.6 litre six which anachronistically had a fixed cylinder head until 1938. Logo of Daimler Daimler (pronounced Dame-ler) has, since 1896, been the motor car marque of the former British Daimler Motor Company, based in Coventry. ... The Birmingham Small Arms Company (BSA) was a British manufacturer of vehicles, firearms, and military equipment, and still exists as an airgun sport manufacturer and distributor. ...

Post war, a ten horsepower car was reintroduced with the 1287 cc LD10 which didn't have a Daimler equivalent and the four cylinder 1950 Fourteen / Leda was upstaged in 1953 by a six cylinder Daimler version called the Conquest.

The last model, of which only prototypes were produced, was called the Sprite and in 1956 the Lanchester name was phased out. The parent company, Daimler, was in decline and in 1960 was absorbed by Jaguar, who used the Daimler name in the same way Daimler had used the Lanchester name. Both became victims of badge engineering in their last years of production. Jaguar Cars Limited is a luxury car manufacturer, originally with headquarters in Browns Lane, Coventry, England but now at Whitley, Coventry. ...

The rights to the Lanchester brand are currently owned by Tata Motors, who purchased them when they bought Jaguar from Ford in 2008. Tata Motors Limited, formerly known as TELCO (TATA Engineering and Locomotive Company), is Indias largest passenger automobile and commercial vehicle manufacturing company. ...

Monument

Lanchester Car Monument

An open-air sculpture, the Lanchester Car Monument, in the Bloomsbury, Heartlands, area of Birmingham, designed by Tim Tolkien, is on the site where the first four wheel petrol car was made by Lanchester. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 536 pixelsFull resolution (2428 × 1626 pixel, file size: 813 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Lanchester Car Monument, an open-air sculpture of the Stanhope Phaeton, or Lanchester motor car. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 536 pixelsFull resolution (2428 × 1626 pixel, file size: 813 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Lanchester Car Monument, an open-air sculpture of the Stanhope Phaeton, or Lanchester motor car. ... Sculptor redirects here. ... Lanchester Car Monument is an open-air sculpture, in the Bloomsbury, Heartlands, area of Birmingham, England, designed by Tim Tolkien, to commemorate the Lanchester Cars which were made in the city. ... Sentinel, by Tim Tolkien, near the Jaguar works in Castle Bromwich, formerly the Spitfire factory Tim Tolkien is a British sculptor who has designed several monumental sculptures, including the award-winning Sentinel. ...

Lanchester cars

References

External links

• Daimler - the first Lanchester car
• Daimler - fluid flywheel