Advertising Last completed movie pages
1949 Alvis TA 14 
Ep. 3.01Class: Cars, Sedan — Model origin: 
00:11:49 ![[*]](/res/star.png){kind=small}
Minor action vehicle or used in only a short scene
Comments about this vehicle| Author | Message |
|---|---|
|
◊ 2019-06-30 15:24 |
![[Image: alvis000343.jpg]](http://pics.imcdb.org/7478/alvis000343.jpg) ![[Image: alvis001153.jpg]](http://pics.imcdb.org/7478/alvis001153.jpg) KYL 692 ✓ Taxed Tax due: 01 September 2019 Vehicle make: ALVIS Date of first registration: September 1949 Year of manufacture: 1949 Cylinder capacity (cc): 1892 cc Fuel type: PETROL Vehicle colour: BLACK |
|
◊ 2019-06-30 15:57 |
Presumably TA14 the only choice for 1949?? |
|
◊ 2019-06-30 16:33 |
4 cylinders of 75 x 110mm = 1892cc I don’t understand your indecision. TA14. |
|
◊ 2019-06-30 20:50 |
These always strike me as being just that bit too frumpy, not quite enough power to cut the mustard, and the spare wheel on the boot lid is too much of a link back to the thirties. The later three litre model, especially in Grey Lady form seems to answer the problems, while retaining that degree of “Alvisness” that marks it out as worthwhile. It’s an interesting source of speculation, to think about the Coventry makes after the end of WW2. The Rootes makes are not part of this, aiming for a different market entirely, but think about Alvis, Armstrong Siddeley, Jaguar and Lea Francis. I think we can forget LeaF, under capitalised and in the position that Riley’s would have been had they not been bought by Nuffield. Armstrong Siddeley had the cushion of turnover from aero engine business, but decided to quit car manufacture. The same decision was taken by Alvis, a little later, but again scared off by the cost and complication of new model development. And then there was Jaguar. Same problems 60 years later? -- Last edit: 2019-06-30 21:07:51 |
|
◊ 2019-06-30 23:27 |
I've read that there were liquidity problems for most of the Coventry makes, who were left with huge over-capacity as a result of wartime shadow factories from aircraft production. Rover for instance had big sites in both Coventry and Solihull but no means of using them - or the attached workforces - to anything like viable capacity levels. So they sold Coventry and regrouped at Solihull in very slashed back form. The other problem everybody faced was receiving sufficient steel allocation to resume car production. Rover only secured supplies for about 1100 cars which insufficient to remain profitable, but bonus quotas were available if export revenue was generated. However aluminium supply was plentiful, hence the aluminium-bodied Land-Rover as an emergency stopgap primarily for a quick hit in friendly Commonwealth export markets to unlock steel allocations. Initially only planned as a run of 500, but it hit magic buttons immediately. Similar story why the Jag XK120 was aluminium body roadster for first couple of years until it could switch to steel and further bodystyles were enabled. |
|
◊ 2019-06-30 23:51 |
I never quite got my head around why there was a steel shortage in '45, surely the mines & furnaces were still geared up for wartime production and no more need for tanks & battleships? We're still sitting on loads of haematite up here. Conversely aluminium was readily availabe? Wasn't bauxite imported? Were early Landies built from used Wellington bomber wings? -- Last edit: 2019-07-01 00:07:13 |
|
◊ 2019-07-01 00:47 |
Can't answer that one. But the sage green paint used on all 1948-49 Landies was scrounged from a leftover stockpile of cockpit paint from the Avro Anson. |
|
◊ 2019-07-01 09:06 |
My interest is sparked more by the designs that came from the various manufacturers than their struggles with economics, although admittedly there must be a fairly tight link between the two. There was, say a couple or so years after cessation of hostilities, no problem selling virtually any car that could drag itself out of the factory, witness the pathetic offerings of much of the industry in U.K. Side valve engines, three speed gearboxes, six volt systems and beam front axles could still be found, and chassis frames in some cases. It suggests lack of enterprise as much as lack of resource, and the seeds planted at that time may well have started the rot that occurred later. |
|
◊ 2019-07-01 09:23 |
Coming from a mining area, and attending a Catholic junior school, I can tell you about the influx of Polish families into this area, plus lots of Durham people, to work the new pits in central Staffs. These took a few years to develop, so possibly the pits that had come through the war were difficult to work having been squeezed almost to death by wartime requirements. There was also the problem of the clapped out railway system, again almost worked to a standstill and starved of investment firstly because all the capitalists knew the railways would be nationalised, and then because their new owners (us) had many other priorities, not least the NHS. Lack of fuel, knackered infrastructure, shortage of skilled workers, and transportation difficulties must have mitigated against steel production in similar manner. There is a theory that, had the war not ended when it did, the U.K. would have experienced a sort of implosion because everything and everyone had been worked into the ground. It has always struck me as fascinating that the adversarial political system in U.K. invariably produces poor long term decisions, no matter who makes them, the political classes being more interested to steal a march on their perceived enemies than in the long term well being of the country, and that we, the electorate, allow them to get away with it. -- Last edit: 2019-07-01 10:26:49 |
Add a comment Advertising Advertising
