Abbey panels

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Abbey Panels Ltd.
The Abbey Panel & Sheet Metal Co. Ltd.
legal form Limited Company
founding 1941
Seat Coventry , UK
management Edward Loades
Les Bean
Branch Body shop
Website www.loades.com

Abbey Panels (initially: The Abbey Panel & Sheet Metal Co. ) is a former British automotive supplier that is now part of the Coventry- based Loades Group. Abbey was one of the most important service providers to the British automotive industry in the second half of the 20th century. The company designed and built prototypes and manufactured body parts for production vehicles, and in some cases complete bodies. Close business relationships existed primarily with Jaguar .

Company history

Abbey's facilities in Coventry (early 1960s)

The company was in 1941 in Nuneaton ( Warwickshire ) as The Abbey Panel & Sheet Metal Co. Ltd. founded. A connection to the body manufacturer Abbey Coachworks , which was based in London in the 1930s, did not exist, regardless of the similarity of names.

In 1942, the trained plumber Edward "Ted" Loades (* 1909; † 2002) joined the Abbey Panel & Sheet Metal Co. and soon became a central figure in the company. Loades rose to management in the following years, gradually took over shares in the company and had been the majority owner since at least the 1950s. He ran Abbey as a family business. In 1974 - at the age of 65 - Ted Loades retired from the company management and passed the management on to his sons.

Abbey began working as a supplier to the UK aircraft industry during World War II . At times, fighter planes of the type Supermarine Spitfire were completed. After the war ended, Abbey concentrated on the manufacture of automobile bodies. Unlike many of its competitors, Abbey mainly worked with aluminum sheets. As part of this reorientation of the company, the plants were relocated to Coventry, where many British automobile manufacturers were based. At the beginning of the 1960s, the company became part of the Loades Group as Abbey Panels, which has been listed on the London Stock Exchange since 1967 . Numerous British, but also continental European automobile manufacturers had prototypes built at Abbey. To varying degrees, Abbey was also involved in their construction. In addition to working for the automotive industry, Abbey occasionally produced parts for aircraft engines; including, but not housing parts for turbofan -Triebwerk Rolls-Royce Pegasus .

In the 1990s, Abbey gave up building body shells and body parts for production automobiles.

Automobile bodies

Prototypes, body parts and small series

Prototype construction: Buick Reatta
Front fairing of the Ford GT 40

Abbey's first assignment in the automotive sector came from Lea-Francis . Abbey designed the body for the two-seater sport versions of the Lea-Francis 12 and 14 models and built a prototype which was unveiled in July 1947. Abbey did not undertake series production. This was followed by the first order from Jaguar Cars, which was the starting point for a decades-long business relationship. At around the same time, Abbey supported the luxury class manufacturer Bristol Cars in setting up its own body production. In addition, the prototypes of the Bristol models Bristol 400 to 403 were made at Abbey. Until the 1990s, Abbey built prototypes for BMW , Buick ( Reatta ), Lincoln , MG , Rolls-Royce , Rover , Volvo and other series manufacturers.

Occasionally Abbey also took on the series production of complete car bodies. This mainly affected Jaguar cars. Apart from that, Abbey produced a total of 105 bodies for the Healey Silverstone Roadster for the Donald Healey Motor Company in 1949 and 1950 . The company then took over the Marauder Car Company's sports car project from Richard Mead . Mead designed the body of the Marauder A in 1949 and built at least one prototype. However, Abbey built the bodies of almost all series models because Mead's capacities were insufficient for the intended series production. In some cases, plans for series production failed; this applied, for example, to the Lea-Francis Lynx presented in 1960 .

In addition to road vehicles, competition cars also received bodies from Abbey. In addition to various Jaguar models, they include the Vanwall VW5 (1957), the Lotus 38 , with which Jim Clark won the Indianapolis 500 mile race in 1965 , and the Le Mans winner, the Ford GT 40 .

Another focus of the company was the production of body parts for series automobiles. In this respect too, many orders came from Jaguar. Abbey's last major order in this area was in 1995 for the production of the fenders for the MG RV8 .

Abbey Panels and Jaguar

Abbey bonnet and other body parts: Jaguar E-Type

Abbey Panels had the most sustainable and varied business relationship with Jaguar Cars. In 1948 Abbey stepped in for the supplier company Sankey , whose body parts did not meet Jaguar's quality requirements. The first order was for the XK 120 . Abbey first produced a prototype in the summer of 1948 and then manufactured the aluminum bodies for the first series vehicles of the XK 120. When Jaguar converted the XK 120 to steel bodies in the summer of 1949, Abbey lost the order because the company did not have enough steel presses to produce the expected quantities. Instead, Pressed Steel took over the production of the steel bodies in Coventry. In the following years Abbey built all the bodies for Jaguar's competition vehicles C-Type (1951) and D-Type ; they were followed in 1966 by the body for the XJ13 , which remained a one-off. Abbey's mainstay in the 1960s was the Jaguar E-Type , for which the company supplied various body panels, including the large, difficult-to-manufacture bonnet. However, Abbey did not build the roof section of the closed models; sufficiently large presses were lacking for this. Shortly before the end of production of the E-Type, Abbey also produced the prototype for its successor, the Jaguar XJ-S . The Abbey management also tried to get the order for the series production of the body-in-white. According to the Ryder Report , which dealt with the economic viability of the British Leyland group, which had fallen into crisis, Jaguar had to manufacture the body in-house.

The last major Jaguar order was for the XJ 220 initiated by Tom Walkinshaw Racing . The body of the prototype was made in 1988 at Abbey's competitor Park Sheet Metal in Coventry. Park Sheet Metal did not receive the order to manufacture the series bodies because Jaguar had doubts as to whether the company would be able to meet the expected demand. The series production took over instead Abbey Panels, where from 1992 to 1994 the body shells were made and all 275 cars were assembled. Abbey then made the prototypes of the Jaguar XK 180 (1998).

Gallery: Cars with Abbey Panels bodies

  • Jaguar XK 120 (1949)

  • Healey Silverstone (1949/50)

  • Jaguar D-Type (1956)

  • Lotus 38 (1965)

  • Ford GT40 (1966)

  • Jaguar XJ220

  • Jaguar XK180 (1998)

literature

  • Brian Laban: Classic Jaguar XK: The 6-Cylinder Cars 1948-1972. The Crowood Press, 2016, ISBN 978-1-78500-194-9 .
  • Nick Walker: AZ of British Coachbuilders 1919-1960 . Herridge & Sons, Shebbear 2007, ISBN 978-0-9549981-6-5 .

Web links

Commons : Abbey Panels Limited  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rainer W. Schlegelmilch, Hartmut Lehbrink: English sports car . Könemann, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-8290-7449-2 , p. 177.
  2. ↑ Nick Walker: AZ of British Coachbuilders 1919-1960. Herridge & Sons, Shebbear 2007, ISBN 978-0-9549981-6-5 , pp. 54 and 202.
  3. ^ History of the Marauder Car Company on the website www.gracesguide.co.uk (accessed September 20, 2019).
  4. ↑ Giles Chapman: The worst cars ever sold . The History Press, Stroud 2011, ISBN 978-0-7509-4714-5 , pp. 64 f.
  5. ^ David Knowles: MG V8. Crowood Press, 2013, ISBN 978-1-84797-517-1 .
  6. ↑ For Sankey, see Nick Walker: AZ of British Coachbuilders 1919-1960. Herridge & Sons, Shebbear 2007, ISBN 978-0-9549981-6-5 , p. 171.
  7. ^ Brian Laban: Classic Jaguar XK: The 6-Cylinder Cars 1948-1972. The Crowood Press, 2016, ISBN 978-1-78500-194-9 .
  8. ↑ Paul Skilleter: The Edward Loades story. P. 6. (loades.com , accessed September 17, 2019).
  9. ^ Rainer W. Schlegelmilch, Hartmut Lehbrink: English sports car . Könemann, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-8290-7449-2 , p. 125.
  10. ↑ British Leyland: The Next Decade by Don Ryder .
  11. ↑ Paul Skilleter: The Edward Loades story. P. 7. (loades.com , accessed September 17, 2019).
  12. ↑ Mike Moreton: Jaguar XJ220: The Inside Story. Veloce Publishing, 2010, ISBN 978-1-84584-250-5 , p. 85.