Grosvenor Carriage Company

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Grosvenor Carriage Company
legal form Limited Company
founding 1910
resolution circa 1960
Seat London , UK
Branch Body shop

The Grosvenor Carriage Company (short: Grosvenor) was a British manufacturer of automobile bodies , which built special bodies for high-volume chassis in the interwar period. The company was closely associated with the vehicle manufacturer Vauxhall , for which it had worked exclusively since the 1930s.

Company history

Vauxhall 20/60 with Grosvenor body (1929 or 1930)
Vauxhall 20/60 Hurlingham Speedster (1928)
Vauxhall Velox Station Wagon (1956)

The Grosvenor Carriage Company was founded in 1910. The company was based in the London borough of Kilburn . At a time that can no longer be determined precisely, Shaw & Kilburn, London's largest Vauxhall dealer, took over the business. As was customary at the time, Shaw & Kilburn also offered variants with independent bodies in addition to the standard vehicles. In any case, from 1920 Shaw & Kilburn had these special bodies for the Vauxhall chassis manufactured by Grosvenor. Accordingly, since the 1920s, Grosvenor's focus has been on bodies for Vauxhall chassis. Until 1932, however, the company also supplied individual bodies for Daimler and Lanchester .

In 1929, Vauxhall added some Grosvenor bodies to the official factory program as a supplement to the regular bodies. Grosvenor's bodies had their own style, but they too were largely standardized. Grosvenor's Vauxhall program included the series

  • Hurlingham , initially a Speedster, from 1934 a coupé with a fixed roof ("Fixed Head Coupé"; from 1934),
  • Melton , a two-seater convertible,
  • Kimberley , a four-door sedan,
  • Newmarket , a four-door sedan and
  • Westminster , a large representation limousine, alternatively a landaulet.

The series continued to develop stylistically over the years. The bodies were mainly intended for the large Vauxhall 20/60 and for its successor Big Six .

In the first years after the Second World War , Grosvenor did not reappear. It wasn't until 1954 that the company presented the Grosvenor Grafton in an advertisement , a 12-seater version of the Bedford CA commercial vehicle , and a canopy pickup on the same basis. To what extent these vehicles were actually built at Grosvenor is unclear. In 1956, the company showed a station wagon version of the contemporary Vauxhall Velox at the Earls Court Motor Show . However, it remained a unique piece.

Grosvenor ceased operations around 1960.

literature

  • Nick Georgano: The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile: Coachbuilding , Routledge, 2001, ISBN 9781136600722 .
  • Nick Walker: A – Z of British Coachbuilders 1919–1960 . Shebbear 2007 (Herridge & Sons Ltd.) ISBN 978-0-9549981-6-5 .

Web links

Commons : Grosvenor Carriage Company  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual proof

  1. ↑ Nick Walker: A – Z of British Coachbuilders 1919–1960 . Shebbear 2007 (Herridge & Sons Ltd.) ISBN 978-0-9549981-6-5 , p. 116 f.
  2. ^ Advertisement for Grosvenor Grafton on the website www.gracesguide.com (accessed February 15, 2019).
  3. ↑ Nick Georgano: The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile: Coachbuilding , Routledge, 2001, ISBN 9781136600722 .