A brief history on Lanchester Motor Company

Formerly known as Lanchester Engine Co, this company was formed in the year 1899 December, it was formed by Frederick Lanchester and his brother Franck Lanchester. Although the first Lanchester to drive on the streets was a five seater chain driven 5.h.p air cooled petrol engine. The assets of the company were 20 British and ten foreign patents. In the year 1900 the Lanchester Engine Co purchased a part of a “Royal small arms factory”, only to be present at the Paris Auto show, with a car that had an 8.h.p engine that had forced air cooling. In the year 1901 the first 10/12 .h.p cars were on the road.

The famous Lanchester 10

The Lanchester 10 was announced on September 1932, the design of its four cylinder was shared with the Daimler. The Ten was the smallest Lanchester ever produced but it was sold in large numbers. The Lanchester Ten saloon was produced by Daimler, and had the famous fluid flywheel pre-selective gearbox. (This provided a stepping stone between a manual and fully automatic gear box. This gear box allowed the car to idle in any gear). The saloon was powered by a 1.25L 4 cylinder engine that produced 40.h.p which propelled the car to 70 mph. the price of the Lanchester Ten was 927.29 British pounds.

The name Lanchester was phased out slowly after 1956 with only prototypes of the last car named “Sprite”. The main company Daimler was also in rough path going downhill only to be bought by Jaguar. It was to become yet another car that fell into the pit with other British auto makers such as Austin, Alvin, Jensen and Hillman due to poor engineering and bad reliability, hence the term “British reliability”. All this aside it still is considered a collectors dream and I personally would love to have a Lanchester in my future car collection.