ALVIS MODEL CHRONOLOGY

TC21

TC21 Saloon - Brochure

Not strictly within the remit of this site except that it's "rolling chassis" formed the basis of all the cars that came after. A nice looking car but, by the middle 1950's, extremely old fashioned looking. Alvis did make a serious attempt to develop a brand new V8 engined monocoque car with rubber suspension (designed by Alec Issigonis who had temporarily jumped ship from the newly formed British Motor Corporation). This came to nothing when the company decided to concentrate resources on military vehicles and aircraft engines which had been producing the vast majority of the firm's profits since the war. Thus it was decided to keep the car side going by fitting out basically the existing car with a modern looking body. For the design they turned to the Swiss coachbuilder Herman Graber who had been using Alvis chassis to underpin his one-off creations. Graber was never considered as a supplier of standard bodies and revisions to the original design were carried out by Alvis or it's contractors. Nevertheless Graber earned a royalty on the cars based on his design - though only the convertibles.

TC108G

TC108G - Advert

Launched (and sank) in 1957. As with every other Alvis before and since, the company had to go outside for the bodies. Unfortunately the traditional body builders were fast disappearing as the larger manufacturers bought up capacity for the production of the new generation of pressed steel monocoque (chassis less) cars.

The TC108G was actually a chassis rather than a specific model of car. Because of production problems in Britain and punitive import duties on foreign built bodies, Alvis decided to have bodies built in the UK for home orders whilst foreign orders were covered through Graber. The home market body contract went to Willowbrook (now part of bus builders Duple) who mainly built coaches and had never built a car body before. The experience was a painful disaster for all concerned. Willowbrook were tackling a learning curve like the north face of the Eiger and fell off after about 14 cars were produced. Price was one factor in the car's failure - it cost £3450 for which you could have bought three Austin Westminsters with considerable change left over. These cars are definitely for the commited enthusiast. The build quality gave a lot of problems even when they were new. Of course most have probably had thousands spent on them by now so may well be completely sorted.

An additional 22 cars were built by Graber to his own designs. Graber continued to take chassis from Alvis right up to the end of production in 1967 and offered a variety of body styles usually based on that year's standard designs. By the nature of the operation, Graber was able to update his designs from car to car almost and to occasionaly take styling risks. He was also able to offer a four door model. The whole "tone" of his cars was therefore very different from the factory model. The Park Ward had a very traditional English air. Graber's cars had a very continental appearance which was much more fashionable and consequently made them look much more up-to-date.

By this time the car division contributed only about 7% of company turnover and was almost extinct. The bulk of earnings came from military vehicles and aero engines. Through 1957 Alvis were only producing chassis for Willowbrook and Carosserie Graber. The division survived for another ten years partly to provide the company with a prestigious public face and partly to absorb costs from other divisions.

TD21 Series 1

TD21 Advert

In 1958 the Graber line was back. The body contract went this time to Park Ward in Chiswick. Park Ward had recently been bought by Rolls Royce and were otherwise involved in batch production of standard bodies for Rolls Royce and Bentley. Do not get excited - banish all thoughts of "Rolls Royce quality" from your mind. Once again body build quality was a serious problem. The root of this was the doors. They are three and a half feet long, very thick, very tall and consisted (to begin with) of a very sturdy timber frame sheathed in steel. But there is more. The A-posts, which the doors hinge on, are timber. Within weeks owners were complaining of doors sagging to the point where they wouldn't open or, if they did, wouldn't shut. As a quick fix the door skins were replaced with aluminium which got rid of a little of the weight and some of the strain on the overworked A-post. That only left the poor paint finish to resolve..... The Alvis contract was a bit of an anomaly at Park Ward and one suspects that their efforts to deal with poor workmanship were influenced by a desire to get out of an activity that was increasingly seen as more trouble than it was worth.

The body construction of the Park Ward cars is actually rather interesting. The bonnet, boot lid, roof panel and (later) the doors are aluminium. All of the panels were produced using rubber press tools. These are a lot cheaper to produce than steel tools - the fact that they wear out quicker is obviously not a big problem on a low volume job. The steel panels were assembled using the then new technology of electric spot welding. However, as noted above, the doors and door pillars were timber and a wooden frame extends from the top of the B-posts around underneath the side and rear windows. There is also a wooden frame which stiffens the roof panel. Park Ward also used the new material fibreglass for some components such as the gearbox tunnel and the cooling fan shroud.

The chassis was so tried and tested that that was never a worry. The main problem was the 4 speed manual gearbox which was supplied by BMC though fitted with an Alvis made remote change linkage. Although this box did very well in the Austin Healey 100/6 it apparently struggled to cope in the Alvis. The factory couldn't think what to do about it other than hope most customers would go for the automatic ! Incidentally, the manual box could be had with overdrive although few cars seem to have had this fitted. It had originally been intended to offer the car with four wheel drum brakes but so many customers were inquiring about disc brakes that it was hurriedly decided that the car should feature servo assisted Dunlop discs on the front wheels initially as an optional extra. An interesting touch is that there is no manifold gasket. Alvis tried using one when the engine first appeared (in the TA21 of 1950) but they kept blowing so eventually they gave up and settled for fitting the manifolds directly to the head.

TD21 Series 2

Series 2 - Front View

Launched in April 1962, the Series 2 carried four wheel disc brakes and is immediately recognisable by the inset foglamps. The gaps around the lamps serve as the intakes for the heater and carburettors. The rear number plate panel was tidied up with neater lamp fittings. The best news was that the timber framed doors were replaced with an all aluminium construction and the doorposts were resin-impregnated. These two measures dealt effectively with the sagging door problem.Later in 1962 the BMC gearbox was replaced by a 5 speed box from ZF.

Revised Rear End

During 1962 and 1963 there were several discussions between Alvis and the David Brown Corporation. These mainly concerned the possiblility of Alvis manufacturing engines and chassis for Aston Martin and the use of the Lagonda engine in the TD21. Nothing came out of these talks which in a way is no bad thing - otherwise how many Alvis' would have been scrapped by Aston Martin owners for their engines in later years ?

TE21 Series 3

TE21 brochure cover

TE21 Advert

No, there was no Series 1 or 2 TE21. Despite changing the name to reflect some quite real improvements the factory carried the Series designation over from tne previous models. Introduced in October1963, the obvious change was the new head and driving lamp arrangement, the stacked design being similar to contemporary Mercedes cars. This was the personal idea of the Managing Director, others at the factory were less keen.... Mechanically the manual gearbox option was switched to the ZF "S 5-17" 5 speed and in 1964 power steering became an option after years of dealer complaints. There were improvements to the exhaust system (chiefly a larger bore) and the head was modified to increase power output..

Dashboard

Coupe - Hood Up

Coupe - Hood Down

TF21 Series 4

TF21 Advert

By this stage the Alvis had been bought by Rover who themselves were about to be bought by British Leyland. For a short while there was a serious intention to launch a new Alvis model but the TF21 marked the end of Alvis cars. Launched in March 1966, the dashboard was redesigned with all the instruments grouped in front of the driver and the engine was fitted with triple carburettors and water heated inlet manifolds. The manual gearbox was changed to ZF's "S 5-20" and a Kenlowe thermostatically controlled fan was fitted. One of the convertibles was fitted with a power hood. Production ended with a bit of a splutter because Park Ward tried to pass back the final few cars unfinished and were only persuaded to complete them after a certain amount of arm twisting.

Production Figures

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