Abbott of Farnham

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Atalanta V-12 swb 2-seat Drop Head Coupe by Abbott (1939)

Abbott of Farnham is the name of a former British coachbuilder based in Wrecclesham near Farnham (Surrey) .

Company history

Edward Dixson Abbott was a naval aviator in World War I , then completed professional training at the Wolseley Motor Company and then worked in the styling department of this automobile manufacturer . This was followed by a position at the coachbuilder Page and Hunt in Farnham, where he last held the position of sales manager for the greater London area.

In 1929 the company went into voluntary liquidation and Abbott took the opportunity to set up on his own. In the harsh economic climate of the 1930s, there was initially a lack of orders for special bodies for passenger cars. Early work involved a roadster on the chassis of a Bugatti Type 50 from 1930; the vehicle has been preserved. Abbott was mainly busy with bodies for commercial vehicles during this time. From 1931 the company exhibited regularly at the motor shows in London . Car bodies are documented for the small car Austin 7 , for British Talbot and Daimler , whereby Abbott benefited from his previous customer contacts at Page and Hunt . Occasionally, Rolls-Royce chassis were also clad, e.g. B. an elegant sports saloon on the chassis of the Phantom III from 1936 (chassis no. 3AX153).

A contract with the Buick importer Lembrun & Hartman secured further work, and after the takeover of an automotive agency for the Armstrong Siddeley brand , bodies were also built for these chassis. For Aston Martin , whose factory bodies have hitherto been exclusively produced by E. Bertelli Ltd. in Feltham , Abbott was able to contribute an attractive, 2/4 seater convertible on the short chassis of the 15/98 model , which was shown for the first time at the London Motor Show in 1937 and cost £ 625. Another, rather short-lived customer was Atalanta Motors , whose factory bodies - roadsters with cut-out doors and “motorcycle” front fenders, convertibles with 2 and 4 seats, a 2-seater coupé and a saloon - were all made by Abbott. That was less great than it sounds; only around 20 Atalanta were built between 1937 and 1939, 19 of them with Abbott superstructures. About 10 still exist.

After the Second World War , both the number of manufacturers of suitable chassis and the demand for special bodies declined. Abbott delivered some convertibles (“Drop Head Coupés”) on the chassis of the Bentley Mark VI as well as very elegant coupés on that of the R-Type , which despite their conspicuous shape were called Two-Door Sports Saloon (“two-door sports sedan ”).

Abbott bodied a four-seater version of the Jaguar XK 120 OTS for a customer in New Zealand from 1951 to 1952. Although the vehicle looks very similar to the production version, most of the body has been remade.

Another mainstay between 1950 and 1954 was the production of 2 + 2-seater "series" convertibles Healey Abbott on chassis types B, C and F with a Riley 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine . Abbott shared the order with Tickford in Newport Pagnell , which was responsible for a two-door sedan in the same design. They replaced the Healey types Westland ( Roadster ) and Elliott ( Two Door Saloon ). Abbott built 88 bodies, Tickford 225.

In 1954 Abbott designed a convertible version of the Bristol 405 for the British luxury vehicle manufacturer Bristol Cars . Abbott is also nominally considered to be the manufacturer of the bodies of the 43 production models. But this is doubted in the literature. Instead, it is assumed that Abbott only produced the design work and the prototype, while volume production was outsourced to Tickford Coachbuilders as a subcontractor.

The construction of special bodies was then abandoned, and Abbott switched to station wagon conversions for British Fords . Because of the competition between Ford and General Motors , Abbott was not allowed to convert sedans from Vauxhall . Corresponding orders instead carried out the company Friary Motors in Basingstoke , which, like Abbott, belonged to Gordon Sutherland and relied on construction plans from Abbott . In 1972 Abbott ceased operations.

gallery

  • Atalanta 2-liter swb 2-seat Drophead Coupe by Abbott (1939)

  • Bristol 405 Drophead Coupe

  • Ford Zephyr 213E Estate; Rebuild by Abbott

  • Ford Zodiac 213E Estate

literature

  • Walker, Nick: AZ of British Coachbuilders, 1919-1960 ; Bay View Books, Bideford, Devon, UK (1997), ISBN 1-870979-93-1 (English)
  • Hildebrand, George (Ed.): The Golden Age of the Luxury Car - An Anthology of Articles and Photographs from Autobody , 1927–1931 ; Dover Publications, Inc .; 1980, ISBN 0-486-23984-5 (English)
  • Dalton, Lawrence: Those Elegant Rolls-Royce ; Revised edition (1978), Dalton-Watson Ltd., Publishers, London, England (English)
  • Dalton, Lawrence: Rolls-Royce - The Elegance Continues ; Dalton-Watson Ltd., Publishers, London, England, ISBN 0-901564-05-2 (English)

Web links

Commons : Abbott of Farnham  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ coachbuild.com: Talbot AV 105 Abbott Roadster (1933)
  2. ↑ Walker: AZ of British Coachbuilders, 1919-1960 , p. 66
  3. ↑ coachbuild.com: Bentley Mk VI Abbott Drop Head Coupé (1949)
  4. ↑ Bentley R-Type # B271SP, Abbott Two-Door Sports Saloon (1953) at rrab.com
  5. ↑ coachbuild.com: Bentley R-Type # B135SP, Abbott Two-Door Sports Saloon (1953)
  6. ↑ coachbuild.com: Jaguar XK 120 Abbott 4-seat Tourer (1951–1952)
  7. ↑ Michael Palmer: Bristol Cars Model by Model , Crowood, 2015, ISBN 978-1-78500-077-5 , p. 81.