Star

GB, 1898 – 1932

Star/ Starling/ Stuart

(1) Star Motor Co, Wolverhampton, Staffs., 1898 – 1902

(2) Star Engineering Co, Wolverhampton, Staffs., 1902 – 1909

(3) Star Cycle Co, Wolverhampton, Staffs., 1905 – 1909

(4) Star Engineering Co Ltd, Wolverhampton, Staffs., 1909 – 1928

(5) Star Motor Co Ltd, Wolverhampton, Staffs., 1928 – 1932

Edward Lisle Sr’s Star Motor Co, an offshoot of the Star Cycle Co, produced its first Star car in 1898, and offered the Star car for sale in the following year. The Star car was a Benz-based machine, with a single-cylinder, water-cooled 3½hp engine, belt primary drive and chain final drive. It was an improvement in that water circulation on the Star car was assisted by a pump. In 1900 there followed a 2-cylinder Star car with 3 forward speeds, still on Benz lines. 1901 brougth De Dion-engined single-cylinder Star cars, and 1902 an 8hp twin of Panhard type in addition. Other, larger Star cars of Panhard ancestry joined the 8hp, up to a 20hp four Star car. By 1904, although a De Dion-powered single and Panhard-type twin were still there, the bigger machines were of Mercédès pattern, these Star cars came with honeycomb radiators, mechanically-operated inlet valves and pressed-steel frames. All veteran Star cars up to 1914 were extremely well-made, well-furnished, conventional, rather expensive cars lacking in technical originality, showing a line of development appearance in the 1907 range. The best-known Star car of the veteran period was the excellent 15hp Star car of 1909, a shaft-driven 2.8-litre four which had become the 3-litre 15.9hp by 1914. A great variety of other Star cars, basically similar models were turned out, not only by Star but also by the Star Cycle Co. The latter, run by Edward Lisle Jr, had made motor tricycles and bicycles, and produced the Starling car in 1905. It had 2 forward speeds and a De Dion single-cylinder engine, but was otherwise of Panhard type, with armoured wood frame and chain drive. One year later the Star car company supplemented it with the more modern Stuart car, which had 2-cylinders, 3-speeds and shaft drive. This name was dropped in 1908, all models being called Starlings, but these too, disappeared in 1909 when Star cars cheaper line was entrusted to the new Brion Motor Co, a more indepented concern that was still run by Edward Lisle Jr. So popular was the Star car that its makers were among the six largest in the country before 1914.

The 15.9hp Star car was continued after World War 1, together with another sv four Star car of pre-war origin, the 20hp Star car of 3.8-litres. A modern light Star car of fashionable type, the 11.9hp, arrived in 1921. This Star car used a 1.795cc sv engine with a detachable head, made in unit with a 3-speed gearbox which had central change. By 1924, the 11.9 Star car had grown up into the 2-litre 12/25hp Star car. It shared cylinder dimensions with the 18hp Star car, which was a new 3-litre six. The 12/25 Star car could be had as a very fine fast touring car with overhead valves and 54bhp, in which form the Star car was called 12/40hp. Thereafter, the Star car range reverted to its pre-war complexity. By 1927, there were three sv Star car models and two additional and more up-to-date Star cars with overhead valves. The 14/40hp Star car, new in 1926, was a solid 2-litre, ohv machine which in spite of having only 4-cylinders and 3 forward speeds, this Star car was a notably smooth and flexible car, thanks to a 5-bearing crankshaft. The ohv 20/60hp Star car, a 2½-litre six with the same bore and stroke as the 14/40 and a 7-bearing crankshaft, was the most luxurious Star car. A light six, the popular ohv 18/50hp, joined the Star car range in 1928, the year of the Star car company’s acquisition by Guy, and replaced the 14/40 Star car for 1929. By this time, the sv Star cars had gone, leaving the two sixes. As the 18hp Star Comet and the 21hp Star Planet, these Star cars were revised with handsome bodies and very full, luxurious equipment, including one-shot chassis lubrication, thermostatically-controlled radiator shutters and a built-in jacking system. Two other engines, of 14hp (2-litres) and 24hp (3.6-litres) were also obtainable in Star cars for 1932, as alternative Comet and Planet power units. These Star car were the last new Star cars, for they were too expensive to make, and the times favoured the mass-produced economy car. Production of Star cars ended in March 1932, but the unsold stock was sold by McKenzie and Denley of Birmingham, and the Star car was quoted in the Buyer’s Guide lists until 1935.

US, 1903 – 1904

(1) Star Automobile Co, Cleveland, Ohio

(2) H.S. Moore, Cleveland, Ohio

This Star car was driven by a single-cylinder, watercooled engine of 1.9-litres, mounted beneath the front seat, with false bonnet and coil radiator in front. A champion planetary transmission and double chain drive was used on this Star car. Both two- and five-seater Star cars were made, the latter with rear entrance.

US, 1908

Star Automobile Co, Chicago, Ill.

Star runabouts were offered in three models, selling for $500, $600 and $700 respectively. The smallest Star car was an open two-seater, and shaft drive was employed on all Star cars.

US, 1908

Model Automobile Co, Peru, Ind.

The short-lived Star car from Peru was offered in conventional 2- and 4-cylinder forms. The twin was chain-driven, while the big, expensive four Star car ($4.000) had shaft drive.

US, 1922 – 1928

Durant Motor Co of New Jersey, Elizabeth, N.J.; Lansing, Mich; Oakland, Calif.

William Crapo Durant’s Star Four was one of the most serious attempts to take away some of the Model T Ford’s market, for the cheapest practical car. Unlike the Ford, the Star car was an assembled machine.The Star car had a 2.2-litre, 4-cylinder engine by Continental, and was conventional in design in every way except the gearbox, which was separate; a feature common to all the vehicles in Durant’s empire, but very unusual in American mass-produced cars by the early 1920s. The touring Star car cost only $443 in 1923, which helped Star to be the seventh biggest seller in America that year. The Star car was sold outside the United States as the Rugby. In 1926, a 2.8-litre six Star car was introduced. Front wheel brakes appeared in 1927 but a year later the Star car make disappeared in the collapse of the Durant interests. By this time, 250 Star cars a day were being turned out. Only the Four was still called the Star car for the 1928 model year, as the Six was now known as the Durant Model 55.

Source: Georgano, encyclopedia of motorcar; TRN, GMN, MJWW, TRN

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

Wolseley (-Siddeley)

GB, 1899 – 1906, 1911 to date

(1) Wolseley Sheep Shearing Machine Co Ltd, Birmingham, 1899 – 1901 

(2) Wolseley Tool and Motor Car Co Ltd, Birmingham, 1901 – 1914

(3) Wolseley Motors Ltd, Birmingham, 1914 – 1927

(4) Wolseley Motors (1927) Ltd, Birmingham, 1927 – 1948

(5) Wolseley Motors (1927) Ltd, Cowley, Oxford, 1949 – 1970

(6) Austin-Morris Division, British Leyland Motor Corp Ltd, Cowley, Oxford, 1970 to date

The first prototype Wolseley car was a 3-wheeler on Léon Bollée lines made by the Wolseley car company’s General Manager, Herbert Austin, in 1896. The Wolseley car featured two horizontal cylinders and overhead camshaft. A second improved Wolseley car model was made in 1897, but production Wolseley cars were based on the 3½hp 4-wheeler of 1899, which competed successfully in the Thousand Miles’ Trial of 1900. This Wolseley car had a single-cylinder horizontal engine mounted at the front with the head pointing forward, automatic inlet valve, coil ignition, a wrap-round tubular radiator, 3-forward speeds, tiller steering, and belt primary and chain final drive, and formed the basis for the Austin-designed Wolseley cars made under Vickers auspices for the next six years.

By 1901 wheel steering, artillery wheels and chain primary drive had been adopted on the Wolseley car, and the single, now rated at 5hp, could be bought for £260, while there was a 10hp 2.6-litre twin Wolseley car at £360, and a 4-cylinder racing Wolseley car with 5-speed gearbox available to special order. Wolseley cars were already among the biggest British producers with 327 Wolseley cars sold that year, increasing to 800 in 1903 and 3.000 Wolseley cars by 1914, when they led the national industry. A 5.2-litre horizontal-four Wolseley car was listed in 1902, from which 52mph was claimed, and the twin-cylinder Wolseley cars of 1905-1906 had mechanically-operated inlet valves.

Austin supported racing energetically, entering 3- and 4-cylinder Wolseley cars for the Paris-Vienna in 1902, while the big 11.9-litre flat-4 Beetles put up the best British performances in the Gordon Bennett Cup Races of 1904 and 1905. Queen Alexandra bought a Wolseley car in 1904, but Austin’s obstinate adherence to the horizontal engine was not appreciated by the Wolseley car company’s directors, and he resigned in 1905 to form his own company. Already Wolseley were making a 3.3-litre vertical-engined 4-cylinder Wolseley car to the designs of J.D. Siddeley (variously known as a Wolseley-Siddeley or Siddeley), and these versions dominated the Wolseley car range in 1906, though single- and twin-cylinder Wolseley cars of the Austin era survived for one more season. 1906 Wolseley-Siddeley cars were made with overhead inlet valves, and (in some cases) overdrive gearboxes, bigger Wolseley car models having oversquare engines, separately-cast cylinders, and chain drive, while the range embraced everything from a shaft-driven 12hp vertical-twin at £325 up to a touring version of Siddeley’s 1905 Gordon Bennett Trials racer, a 15.7-litre Wolseley-Siddeley car listed at £1.250. Licence-production of Wolseley cars in Italy was initiated under the name of Wolsit. Thermo-syphon cooling was introduced on the Wolseley-Siddeley Ten in 1907, in which year a shaft-driven version of the 5½-litre 4-cylinder 30 could be bought, as well as the Wolseley car company’s first six, an 8½-litre 45 with dual ignition. L-head engines were standard in 1908, and 1909 saw the end of chain drive and the introduction of a smaller 24/30hp 6-cylinder Wolseley-Siddeley car. In 1910 came the very successful monobloc 2.2-litre 4-cylinder Wolseley-Siddeley 12/16 with pressure lubrication and worm drive at £370. At the other end of the range was the big bevel-driven 6-cylinder Wolseley-Siddeley 40/50 at £660 for a chassis.

Siddeley had gone to Deasy in 1909, and for 1911 the cars became plain Wolseley cars once more. 1913 Wolseley cars had air-pressure fuel feed, the best seller being the 3.2-litre 16/20 Wolseley car with dual ignition at under £500. In this year an experimental gyrocar was made for the Russian inventor Count Schilovsky, while a worm-driven light car, the Wolseley Stellite, was being made by a subsidiary company. The 1914 Wolseley car range consisted of the 16/20, and two sixes rated at 24/30 and 30/40, all Wolseley cars with electric lighting and detachable wire wheels. The Wolseley sixes had bevel drive, and came equipped with compressed-air starters, supplanted in 1919 by conventional electrical units.

Wolseley cars made the V8 overhead-camshaft Hispano-Suiza aero engines during World War 1, and their first true post-war 1 Wolseley cars featured both overhead camshafts and detachable heads, though a 3.9-litre sv six Wolseley car was made in various forms up to 1927. The 1.3-litre 10 Wolseley car had a rear-axle gearbox, quarter-elliptic springs, worm drive, and coil ignition, and replaced the Stellite; it cost £500, and there was a companion 2.6-litre ohc 15 Wolseley car with a conventionally-mounted gearbox. In 1921 the Wolseley car company made 12.000 Wolseley cars, and numerous types were offered in ensuing years, including aluminium-bodied sports versions of the 10 and 15 Wolseley cars, an austerity edition of the 10 two-seater, and a 7hp flat-twin at £295. In 1925 the 10 grew up into a four-seater 11/22 Wolseley car, and the 15 was replaced by an sv 16/35 Wolseley car, the last new side-valve Wolseley car.

For 1927 the Wolseley car company offered a new 2-litre 16/45hp ohc Wolseley car Silent 6 with spiral bevel final drive and 4-speed gearbox, but in the meanwhile the Wolseley car company had gone bankrupt, and had been acquired by Sir William Morris (Lord Nuffield). Under new management the ohc designs Wolseley cars were developed as well as being adapted to the companion makes of Morris and MG. New Wolseley cars in 1928 were a coil-ignition 2.7-litre straight-8 at £750, and a 12/32hp 4-cylinder, also ohc, at £315. In 1929 there was a short-lived and very expensive 8-cylinder 32/90 Wolseley car and a more important 6-cylinder 21/60 Wolseley car which in export form boasted Budd welded all-steel bodywork and Lockheed hydraulic brakes, and was virtually a Wolseley car edition of the Morris Isis which followed it in the 1930 season.

That year Wolseley cars pioneered the really cheap small six in England with the 1.3-litre Wolseley Hornet; this Wolseley car shared the 21/60’s hydraulics, and resembled a Morris Minor with two extra cylinders and an elongated bonnet. The Wolseley car offered remarkable flexibility for £185, and attracted a vast diversity of inexpensive special bodywork from such firms as E.W. (Eustace Watkins) and Swallow. The 1931 stablemates of this Wolseley car were a 2-litre Wolseley Viper with Morris styling at £285, and 6- and 8-cylinder versions of the 21/60 Wolseley car, all with overhead camshafts. 1932 Wolseley Hornets had a forward engine mounting allowing of roomy 4-door saloon bodywork without lengthening the wheelbase, while a twin-carburettor sports version, the Wolseley Hornet Special, was marketed as a chassis only at £175.

In 1933 came the illuminated radiator badge on the Wolseley car, a Wolseley hallmark over since, and 1934 Wolseley cars had synchromesh, a roomy 1-litre 4-cylinder Wolseley Nine at £179 joining the Wolseley Hornet, now available with free wheel at £215. In 1935 there was a brief venture with preselector gearboxes and some new ohc 6-cylinder Wolseley cars. The Wolseley Nine gave way to the bigger Wolseley Wasp, the Wolseley Hornet grew up to 1.4-litres, and a 1.6-litre 14hp Wolseley car formed the basis for a 50bhp Wolseley Hornet Special capable of nearly 80mph, but 1936 was the last year of overhead camshafts on Wolseley cars. Already the old 21/60 had been replaced by a range of ohv push-rod Super Sixes, virtually luxury 4-speed Wolseley car derivatives of the Series II Morris with easy-clean wheels and more luxurious equipment, and by the end of the year the 4-cylinder light Wolseley cars had fallen into line with this theme. Last to go was the Wolseley Fourteen which in June, 1936 reappeared as a push-rod 1.8-litre 14/56 selling for £265.

By 1939-1940 a comprehensive Wolseley car range included a 1.140cc Wolseley Ten (the mechanical components of Morris’s Series-M mounted in a separate chassis), a 1½-litre 4-cylinder 12/48 Wolseley car, and sixes of 14, 16, 18, 21, and 25hp, the last-mentioned version of the Wolseley Super Six being also available as a sporting drophead coupé and a limousine. The 18hp model Wolseley car, introduced in 1937, was adopted by Scotland Yard and was the first Wolseley car to win general favour with police forces, a connection that has continued with subsequent 6-cylinder models into the 1960s. A 1939 18/85 Wolseley car driven by Humfrey Symons broke the London-Cape record with a time of 31 days 22 hours despite falling through a bridge in the Congo.

A rather smaller range of similar Wolseley cars went back into production in 1945, rounded out by an 8hp Wolseley car which was a de luxe, ohv development of the Series-E Morris 8. For 1949 a removal to Cowley was accompanied by two entirely new Wolseley cars with unitary construction, and hypoid final drive: these Wolseley cars were basically similar to the Morris Oxford and Six, though the smaller 4/50 had a 4-cylinder version of the ohc power unit common to the Morris and Wolseley Sixes. Coil-and-wishbone independent front suspension replaced the torsion-bar layout in the 1953 4/44 Wolseley car, powered by a detuned version of the T-type MG engine, but the effect of the Nuffield-Austin merger was soon felt in a rationalization of design.

The first Austin-engined Wolseley car was the 2.6-litre 6/90 of 1955, which Wolseley car shared a both with Riley’s Pathfinder, and was available the following year with overdrive or automatic transmission, but 1958 brought an attractive compact 1½-litre saloon, the Wolseley 1500, which was basically an expanded Morris Minor with rack-and-pinion steering and a close-ratio 4-speed gearbox. A Riley equivalent was also marketed, and BMC’s Australian factory offered variants with Austin and Morris nameplates.

This was Wolseley cars last individual effort, and subsequent Wolseley cars have been luxury editions of basic Austin/ Morris themes, a Mini variant, the Hornet, making its appearance in 1962. A luxury 1100 variant appeared in 1966, evolving into a 1300 by 1968. A year earlier Wolseley  cars had announced their 18-85 or de luxe 1800, though the Hornet had gone by 1969. In 1973 the 1300, the 18-85, and a 6-cylinder front wheel drive 2200 were offered.

Source: Georgano, encyclopedia of motorcar; MCS      

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