Monte Carlo or Bust: the unconquered Invicta

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If you are going to name a car Invicta – ‘Unconquered’ – it had better live up to its name, and it certainly did on the 1931 Monte Carlo Rally. The success of the ‘Low Chassis’ S-type number S48 is well known, partly because it was a landmark in the career of its driver, the young Donald Healey. However, the victory was possibly less celebrated in period than it is today. After Healey had smiled for the cameras, the car was stripped of its rally paraphernalia, re-registered and eventually sold to Australia.

In more recent years, it has re-entered the limelight, being owned and raced by the late Alain de Cadenet, but there was nothing besides its documentation which said: ‘This car won the Monte’. That started to change when a new owner bought the car in 2022 and presented it to R. C. Moss with the brief to return it to its original rally-winning appearance, with an emphasis on authenticity down to the last detail.

This proved challenging because S48 carried a host of special features not seen on Invicta’s standard road cars, the particulars of which could only be ascertained by scrutinising period photographs, or by being creative when no definitive records existed. Hence S48 now carries hand-painted rally plaques, snow chains on its spare wheel, special map and tool pockets, and many more unique features.

Before it flew out to Pebble Beach, Mick Walsh took a close look for the August issue of The Automobile, on sale now.

Text by Zack Stiling
Photographs by Rob Cooper

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