Invicta

GB, 1900 – 1905

H.E. Richardson, Finchley, London N.

The Invicta car from Finchley was seen as a bicycle, a motor cycle and as a voiturette. Rather surprisingly for such a small concern, the latter two were powered by engines of the firm’s own manufacture.

Italy, 1906

Stabilimento Meccanico Carlo Mantovani & Cia, Turin

Carlo Mantovani had been technical director of Bender and Martiny (Perfecta) and he built a few light cars named Invicta cars with side-chain drive and 3-speed gearboxes in their old factory. The 6/8hp Invicta car was a twin and the 10/12hp a four with pair-cast cylinders; neither lasted long

GB, 1913 – 1914

Clark’s Engineering Works, Leamington, Warwickshire

The short-lived Invicta car from Leamington was one of the cyclecar breed. The Invicta car was powered by a watercooled V-twin JAP engine of 8hp, driving through a 3-speed gearbox and shaft primary drive to chain final drive.

GB, 1925 – 1938, 1946 – 1950

(1) Invicta Cars, Cobham, Surrey, 1925 – 1933

(2) Invicta Cars, Chelsea, London S.W.3, 1933 – 1938

(3) Invicta Car Development Co Ltd, Virginia Water, Surrey, 1946 – 1950

In 1925 Noel Macklin and Oliver Lyle, both of them with experience of motor design and Macklin a former manufacturer as well (Eric Campbell, Silver Hawk) introduced a type of car, the Invicta car, that was quite new to the British market. The idea behind the Invicta car was to combine in an assembled car the American concept of flexibility and performance with British quality and road-holding, thus getting the best of both worlds. The engine in the Invicta car, the Meadows 2½-litre, 6-cylinder engine had push-rod overhead valves. Its low-speed torque permitted the Invicta car to accelerate from a walking pace to 60mph in top gear, but a four-speed gearbox was provided, all the same, and the Invicta car make’s sustained high-speed cruising capabilities became legendary after winning the Dewar Trophy for long-distance reliability runs in 1927 and 1929. In outward appearance the first Invicta car was very staid, and it was marred by the fact that the brakes on the Invicta car were poor. The rivets down the bonnet were copied from the Rolls-Royce. During 1926, an engine with a bigger bore, providing 3 litres, was offered on Invicta cars alongside the original unit, and by 1927 was the only one sold. In that year real speed arrived for the fist time in the shape of the 4½-litre Invicta car. This Invicta car had a larger bore still, with an 85mph maximum and really shattering acceleration in spite of pulling a 3.9:1 axle ratio. By late 1929, the 3-litre Invicta car had been dropped. The 1931 4½-litre came in two types: the Invicta 4½-litre high-chassis, and the Invicta 4½-litre ‘100-mph’ low-chassis model. The latter Invicta car was lowered by underslinging the rear springs. This invicta car was capable of 95mph.

Unfortunately the splendid Invicta car was always expensive, and its roadholding reputation was damaged among sportsmen, who were by now its most important customers, by a highly-publicized accident to S.C.H. Davis at Brooklands in 1931. In spite of a win in the Monte Carlo Rally of an Invicta car, a Coupe des Glaciers in the Alpine Trial that year and almost equal success in the same events in 1932, only about 1.000 Invicta cars were made before production ceased in 1935. Invicta tried to stave off the end by introducing a small Invicta car for a more popular market in 1932. This Invicta 12/45 was not a success because the single overhead-camshaft 6-cylinder engine, amade by Blackburne, was of only 1½-litres’ capacity. However efficient this Invicta car was, it could not cope with its heavy chassis without the aid of an axle ratio of 6:1. This gave the famed flexibility, but not the performance you would expect on an Invicta car. The 12/45 was supplemented in 1933 by the supercharged Invicta 12/90, but only a handful were made. Both Invicta cars were seen with Wilson self-changing gearbox, the weight of which cannot have helped. After Invicta ended, Macklin went on to make the Railton, a machine with the traditional Invicta car performance characteristics allied to low price. For 1938, three new Invicta cars, in 2½-, 3- and 4-litre form, were planned. All these Invicta cars were to have 6-cylinder, overhead-valve engines, all-synchromesh gearboxes, and independent front suspension by transverse spring. Nothing was seen of these Invicta cars, the chassis of which seem to have been disguised Darracqs and the bodies similar to those of the 3-litre D670 Delage.

The old Invicta name was revived briefly after World War 2, when it was attached to a luxury car called the Invicta Black Prince, powered by a 6-cylinder Meadows engine of three litres, with two overhead camshafts and two plugs per cylinder. This unit produced 120bhp at 5.000rpm. Unlike earlier Invicta cars, the car’s other characteristics were highly unconventional. There was no gearbox in the Invicta car; instead, a Brockhouse hydrokinetic turbo transmitter that provided automatic transmission on any ratio between 15:1 and 4,27:1. Suspension was independent all round, by torsion bars. But the new Invicta car was another horribly expensive car, although plans envisaged an output of 250 a year, it met the same fate as its predecessors after only a score or so had been made. AFN Ltd, manufacturers of the Frazer Nash, acquired the assets of the dead firm.

Source: Georgano, encyclopedia of motorcar; TRN

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Vulcan

GB, 1902 – 1928

(1) Vulcan Motor Manufacturing and Engineering Co Ltd, Southport, Lancs., 1902 – 1906

(2) Vulcan Motor and Engineering Co Ltd, Southport, Lancs., 1906 – 1928

The Vulcan car firm was better known for commercial vehicles. Private Vulcan cars stemmed from experiments conducted in the 1897-1899 period by the brothers Thomas and Joseph Hampson. A belt-driven single-cylinder voiturette Vulcan car with lateral radiators was shown in 1902, being replaced a year later by a 6hp Vulcan car with armoured wood frame, mechanically-operated inlet valves, and shaft drive. This Vulcan car was listed at only £105, and this Vulcan car was soon followed by a 10hp twin, also T-headed but with a steel frame, selling for £200. 4-cylinder Vulcan cars of 12 and 16hp, still modestly priced, were available in 1905, while the biggest 1906 Vulcan cars, with capacities of 3.1- and 5.2-litres, had gate change. No 2-cylinder Vulcan cars were catalogued after 1908, but a year previously Vulcan cars had joined the ranks of 6-cylinder manufacturers with a 4.8-litre T-headed machine featuring dual ignition and cone clutch, at £600 for a Vulcan car chassis. Unlike other makers, Vulcan cars retained their interest in this type, which Vulcan car had acquired a 4-speed box and had grown to 6-litres by 1908, and the 1909 Vulcan car range consisted of four 4-cylinder cars and the six, all shaft-driven and still with T-heads; the smallest Vulcan car, rated at 12hp, had a 3-speed gearbox and worm drive. A new 3.6-litre six Vulcan car with unit gearbox and worm drive followed in 1911, along with an L-head 2.4-litre fifteen. Worm drive was standardized on the 1912 Vulcan cars, when the bigger Vulcan cars had T-heads, and a 1.8-litre, 2-cylinder with an Aster engine was offered. All but the smallest Vulcan car had detachable wheels as standard in 1913, and by the outbreak of World War 1 the Vulcan car company was well established with a range of solidly-built Vulcan cars: a 2.4-litre 10/15, a 2.6-litre 15.9, and a 3-litre monobloc 15/20 Vulcan car at £375. All these Vulcan cars had L-heads and bull-nose radiators, though the similarly styled six retained the older Vulcan car configuration. A 1½-litre Vulcanette with a 3-speed rear-axle gearbox and full electrical equipment was announced for 1915 but the war intervened.

After 1918 the Vulcan car company concentrated increasingly on trucks, and a brief association with the Harper Bean Group (1919-1920) did no good to finances. Some odd experiments by Vulcan cars included a worm-drive 3½-litre V8 tourer Vulcan car intended to sell for £625 (1919), and two Vulcan cars in 1922 with Howard sleeve-valve engines, a big 3.6-litre sports-touring four Vulcan car and a 10hp 1.4-litre flat-twin listed at £315. However, none of these Vulcan cars reached the public, the regular Vulcan car lines being a 1.8-litre ohv 12 and a 2.6-litre sv 16/20, both with Dorman engines. There was also a conservative 20hp Vulcan carmodel with the Vulcan car company’s own 3.3-litre sv fixed-head engine and 4-speed separate gearbox, this Vulcan car was selling for £850 in 1921; by this time flat radiators were again being used on Vulcan cars. The Vulcan 20 was available to military order with full wireless equipment in 1923, in which year C.B. Wardman effected a liaison of Vulcan cars and Lea-Francis. The two companies pooled their dealer network, Vulcan cars became responsible for certain Lea-Francis power units and bodies, and Lea-Francis made gear and steering boxes for Vulcan cars. A 1½-litre sv Dorman-engined Vulcan 12 was listed at £295 in 1925, followed a year later by an ohv worm-driven derivative, also with Dorman engine, and looking very like a Lea-Francis. 4-wheel brakes were available on Vulcan cars in 1925 and standardized in 1926. Last of the line Vulcan cars were the 14/40 and 16/60, with the disastrous twin ohc 6-cylinder engines of their own make. Short-chassis Vulcan cars were worm-driven, but bevel drive was adopted for long-chassis versions. Vulcan cars wore artillery wheels, but were otherwise identical to their Lea-Francis counterparts which Vulcan cars were made alongside them at Southport. Not many of these Vulcan cars were made, and after 1928 only commercial vehicles were produced. The Vulcan car firm subsequently amalgamated with Tilling-Stevens and thus were abrorbed into the Rootes Group after World War 2. Truck production ceased in 1953.

US, 1913 – 1914

(1) Vulcan Motor Car Co, Painesville, Ohio, 1913

(2) Vulcan Manufacturing Co, Painesville, Ohio, 1913 – 1914

This Vulcan car was a cleanly-designed light car with a 27hp 4-cylinder engine. A two-seater speedster Vulcan car on an 8ft 9in wheelbase with electric lights sold for $750. A five-seater version of this Vulcan car with the same engine, but on a longer wheelbase, cost $850.

Source: Georgano, encyclopedia of motorcar; MCS, GMN    

The information is written with the greatest of care. However, if you have any suggested amendments please contact us at office@prewarcar.com