Offord & Sons

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Offord car body Alvis Speed ​​25 (1937)

Offord & Sons was a British cartwright and manufacturer of automobile bodies based in London's West End . In the first half of the 20th century, the family company primarily produced handcrafted and customized bodies for British and American luxury vehicles.

Company history

Offord & Sons was founded in 1791. The company initially manufactured carriages . In the 19th century it became the royal purveyor to the court and was at times responsible for maintaining the carriages in the royal fleet ( Royal Mews ). In 1895 the first automobile body was produced. Offord showed them that same year at the Horseless Carriage Exhibition at Crystal Palace .

Between 1901 and 1902, the company manufactured complete automobiles which were marketed as Harrington . Electric cars were created in 1903. They were branded Offord ; a similar vehicle had already been presented in 1896 at the Horseless Carriage Exhibition 1896, which was held at the Imperial Institute in London.

After the end of the First World War , Offord produced elaborate individual bodies for high-priced chassis. At the same time, the company tried to produce automobile bodies for cheaper chassis in larger series. For this purpose Offord took over the Stevenage- based competitor Gazeley , which had developed a process for the series production of lightweight all-weather structures ("featherlights"). The superstructures were designed for Ford and Chevrolet chassis . The project failed, however, and Offord had to sell the Gazeley facilities at a high loss. Offord went bankrupt, as a result of which the company was restructured.

From then on, Offord no longer had its own workshops. The company limited itself to designing individual bodies for chassis from Bentley , Rolls-Royce , Packard or Stutz . Subcontractors such as R. Harrison & Son , TH Gill , Carlton and Lancefield were then commissioned to build the body by hand . In the 1930s Offord finally designed a series of standard bodies for Clement Talbot and Vauxhall , which were included in the respective factory catalogs. Offord's last design was a convertible body for Alvis , which was produced in several copies from 1936 to 1939.

Offord ceased operations in 1939. However, some craftsmen continued to take care of the vehicles of the British royal family in the following years.

Automotive engineering

Brand name Harrington

The only model was the 7 HP . A single cylinder engine was mounted in the front of the vehicle and drove the rear axle. The open body offered space for four people.

Brand name Offord

These were electric cars. An electric motor drove the vehicles.

literature

  • Nick Walker: AZ of British Coachbuilders 1919-1960. Shebbear 2007 (Herridge & Sons Ltd.) ISBN 978-0-9549981-6-5 .
  • Lawrence Dalton: Those Elegant Rolls Royce. Revised edition (1978), Dalton-Watson Ltd., Publishers, London. (English)
  • Lawrence Dalton: Rolls Royce - The Elegance Continues. Dalton-Watson Ltd., Publishers, London, ISBN 0-901-564-05-2 . (English)
  • Harald H. Linz, Halwart Schrader : The International Automobile Encyclopedia . United Soft Media Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8032-9876-8 .
  • George Nick Georgano (Editor-in-Chief): The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile. Volume 2: G – O. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, Chicago 2001, ISBN 1-57958-293-1 . (English)

Web links

Commons : Offord & Sons  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Nick Walker: AZ of British Coachbuilders 1919-1960 . Shebbear 2007 (Herridge & Sons Ltd.) ISBN 978-0-9549981-6-5 , p. 154.
  2. ↑ a b Harald H. Linz, Halwart Schrader : The International Automobile Encyclopedia . United Soft Media Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8032-9876-8 .
  3. ^ A b Georgano: The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile.
  4. ↑ Gracesguide: 1896_Motor_Show
  5. ^ A b Nick Walker: AZ of British Coachbuilders 1919-1960 . Shebbear 2007 (Herridge & Sons Ltd.) ISBN 978-0-9549981-6-5 , p. 155.
  6. ↑ Illustration of an Alvis Speed ​​25 with Offord body on the website www.ultimatecarpage.com (accessed on March 18, 2014).