Armstrong Siddeley is a brand name that may well have little recognition now and especially so outside the UK, but it has a history that can be traced back to the Victorian era, and is named for what might be called engineering aristocracy. This was not a car from a mere cycle builder with ambitions.
The Armstrong element is traceable to Sir William Armstrong, who in 1847 founded a company to produce hydraulic cranes, bridges and other equipment, and later armaments. In 1897, Armstrong merged with Joseph Whitworth and Co, who had devised the Whitworth screw thread, a standard still recognised today, creating Armstrong Whitworth. The merged company expanded into cars in 1902, initially under the Armstrong brand and always at the top end of the market, and then aircraft from 1913.
Siddeley comes from Siddeley-Deasy, founded in Coventry in 1906 and managed from 1908 by John Siddeley, who added his name in 1910. By 1918, Siddeley-Deasy was a similar company to Rolls-Royce, building aero-engines and top end cars. Cars were always a small part of the overall business though.
In 1920, Armstrong Whitworth and Siddeley-Deasy merged to create Armstrong Siddeley with interests from cars and aero engines to shipbuilding and armaments. Cars continued to remain a small part of the business, and at the top end of the market.
Through a series of corporate moves, linking the company with Hawker to create the famous Hawker Siddeley name, the Armstrong Siddeley company can now be traced into airframes, shipbuilding and armaments now owned by BAE Systems, aero-engines owned by Rolls-Royce, and the trains and power station equipment distributed amongst the great engineering companies of Europe. Armstrong Siddeley car production ceased in 1960, and Armstrong Siddeley then worked a contract manufacturer for Rootes, principally on the Sunbeam Alpine sports car until 1965.
The feature car is a 1949 Armstrong Siddeley Whitley, to compete with the largest Humber, Rovers and the emerging Jaguar. It was actually a revision of the first post war Armstrong Siddeley, the Lancaster. One of the advantages of being closely associated with an aircraft builder was that Armstrong Siddeley had access to some great names. There was also a Hurricane and a Typhoon; the Whitley was named after a WWII bomber.
Not surprisingly, Armstrong Siddeley picked up on this in their advertising.
Built in a traditional boy on frame manner, the Whitley was 185 inches long on a 115 inch wheelbase, and was powered by a 2.3 litre 75 bhp straight six, giving 80 mph performance. Suspension was a by torsion bars at the front and leaf springs at the rear. The cost in 1949 was £1216, 11 shillings and 8 pence including tax when new, say around £30,000 ($45000 or thereabouts) now, or Jaguar XF money.
The bodies for the standard cars, either four light or six light, were built within the Hawker Siddeley group by Burlingham, but other bodybuilders produced low volume versions. Over six years, sales reached 2500. The brand was caught in a perfect storm of tough economic times, linmited export appeal and distribution network, and strong competition from Rover, Jaguar and may be Humber, all offering most of the tangibles offered in the Whitley at lower prices. The rights to the designs and logos are now owned by the Armstrong Siddeley Owners’ Club.
And why is this car parked outside a farm entrance on a September evening? Well, it was the second Wednesday of the month, so the fish and chip van was at the pub.
And that van was a 1967 Citroen H van, set up to serve the aristocrat of takeaway food, and with another aristocrat, Adnams Southwold beer, available (warm of course) in the Queen’s Head as well.
I might need a lift home. Who’s got the keys for the Armstrong Siddeley?
Fish and chips served out of a French truck – it just seems so wrong. 🙂
An unusual and interesting car. The torsion bar suspension had to be unique in this car’s price class and era.
Finally, how does one pronounce “Siddeley.” Is it the two-syllable “SID-lee” in England?
Fish & chips from a French van, an advert for homes named after a horned Celtic pagan god, it looks like the set of a Hammer horror film. Once again a splendid read Roger, thank you.
I don’t remember seeing any Armstrong Siddeley cars as a kid in the 60s apart from my brother’s model Sapphire. I built the 1/72 Frog model Whitley in Coastal Command colours when I was 12. I remember reading that Armstrong Siddeley never sprayed their cars, they painted them. I can imagine having to have an interview before buying one just so they knew they weren’t selling to an oik.
Its the entente cordiale in an edible form 🙂
Siddeley is more “Sid-de-ley”, but my phoentic spelling is not that great….
The Riley RM wasn’t quite in the same price class, but it also had torsion bars.
This is a car that needed David Niven as it’s spokesperson. I can hear his clipped accent now:
“Armstrong Siddeley – The Car of Character”
I hear Alfred Hitchcock.
How about John Houseman, famous as a pitchman for Smith-Barney: “We make money the old fashioned way. We EARN it.”
Now I can hear the Queen Mother (or maybe Maggie Smith) saying “EARNING money? My dear boy, how terribly vulgar”.
The Rootes connection was discussed in a facebook group I’m in recently the topic being that Armstrongs drawings of their 6 cylinder engine were made available and morphed into the Hemi Super Snipe 3 litre engine, true or not I dont know.
Graham Robson’s Cars of the Rootes is quite explicit on this.
“the engine in the Super Snipe from 1958 to 1967 was a clone of the A-S Sapphire engine, though not publicly declared as such. He implicitly links the contract to build the Alpine with the access/rights tot he engine design
Nice car of a type you would never run in to in the States. Like the Alvis, seems like a car designed to trade down to from a Rolls, as one’s fortune declined.
Yes, downscaling with class and British style.. Could be a lot worse.
No more like I know who I am I do not need a Royce to remind me.
Speaking of utes in another post today, these also came as a very neat ute called the Station Coupe.
THey sold in OZ for many years an uncle of mine Sam Whyte pulled a 1924 sedan from an inlaws shed in Melbourne many years ago and drove it back to Sydney the worlds only surviving example of that model its still original never been restored.
Thank you, Roger. The perfect complement to a delicious serving of fried fish and chips would be to pilot that Whitley home. To the carriage house.
I have an inexplicable attraction to certain cars of English origin from the pre-war period until they faltered at the transition to modernity….Alvis, Riley, Rover, Bentley, Daimler. I’m not likely to get one soon but the thought keeps at me.
I tell myself the Alvis and Armstrong Siddeley are actually feasible with the parts support through the clubs. 346 4 light Sapphire with manual change, please. For best I’ll need a 4.3 Alvis with VdP saloon body.
What doesn’t make the grade are the baby Sapphires – regardless of how good they are as machines – the Pathfinder and 2.6, later badge engineeed expedience (Mk VI and R Types are forgiven in this respect) and that confusing range of small Daimlers.
I recognized the brand (but not the “Whitley” saloon) immediately from the grille.
UK Dinky # 38E is an Armstrong Siddeley die cast model (toy) and the grille shape is identical to this car. Being an American, I’ve never seen an A/S in 1:1 scale. However being a Dinky Toy collector for many decades that car had to be the same brand of the (apx.) 1:43 scale toy car I have seen on a prominent shelf in my toy cabinet for all that time.
I can place that car in an American milieu as sort of an English LaSalle – nicely discreet but of course not quite as modern as GM could make in 1940.
A fireman who lived across the street from us in the ’50’s had an Armstrong Siddeley – it looked old even then.
Beautiful car, I was drooling over a Sapphire on a consignment lot years ago. Couldn’t afford it sadly. How do these compare with the Lanchester?
The contrast of the very dated 1920s styling of the car with the new airplane is almost painful. Why didn’t Brit cars deserve up to date styling?
I remember an article on the Daimler DS420 getting similar comments, but I suspect buyers of this type of car didn’t want “up to date”.
I’d bet some Armstrong Siddeley owners were terrified of modernity, and as with the DS420, an upright, chiselled, “dignified & stately” look might have been preferable to a sleek one.
To me, it looks like a car completely at home in early 50s England. The Queen still goes around in a frickin golden carriage you know.
I understand why; it was a light-hearted rhetorical question. Actually, the real reason is because small firms like A-S couldn’t afford it, even if they wanted to. They were stuck in building cars like they had been during the golden 1920s.
That ad image is just such an ironic juxtaposition. And of course, a number of the new Brit commercial airplanes failed too, in the 50s.
Not to mention a little Fitz and Van style stretching and sleeking of the car in the ad. The ad car looks great, the actual is a bit stubby.
“Why didn’t British cars get up-to-date styling immediately?” No equivalent styling czar like Misterl and his GM Styling powerhouse to drive the industry.
Great article, I come to CC daily for informative article like this, always learn something, thank you!
Come on Paul, stop exaggerating, it has 1930’s styling! 😉
I’d more charitably date the styling as immediately pre war. Benz, restarting from rubble didn’t have integrated headlights until the Adenauer and Type 220 in 1951. To read the UK press releases you’d think they were up to date! British manufacturers just carried on with the sense anything more was a fad and not for them. So, conservative management, sales executives out of touch with the preferences of export markets, low volume and craft based external body suppliers?
A few of the mass producers did introduce up to date bodies at the 1949 motor show, Morris for example with the minor and MO Oxford with integral guards and almost full width grilles, and the P4 Rover. Also, Sunbeam-Talbot had flush sides on 80 and 90 in 49. Singer 1500…bleah, forget it.
Obviously most looked to the US for inspiration and not all the cues of the full size cars translated well into the smaller scale.
Fun fact: Raymond Loewy was a consultant on the Austin A30! Even his genius couldn’t save that one.
It looks as though there was a conflict of styles. On the one hand, those who stuck to “proper” styling – mostly the prestige manufacturers, but also MG (the TF) and Triumph (the Mayflower, bless it). And remember that Ford kept the antique Popular going until 1959!
On the other hand, there were cars like Jowett, Rover, Morris Minor that were more contemporary, but were highly criticised for looking “American”. For many years, US cars, all bulges and chrome, were derided in many quarters of the British press. We were, as Harold Macmillan said, going to be Geeece to the US’s Rome. Utter nonsense, of course.
Eventually, sanity and modernity prevailed, but there was still an outcry when R-R unveiled the Silver Shadow in the mid-60s. And for some, to this day, only Malvern’s finest will do!
“On the other hand, there were cars like Jowett, Rover, Morris Minor that were more contemporary, but were highly criticised for looking “American”.
The dreaded “Dollar Grin”!
It was interesting that cars like the Minor and the Rover P4 seemed American inspired when new, but by the end of their long runs were esteemed British institutions.
Very enjoyable article. Having returned from an extremely enjoyable trip to London several months ago this brought back all those wonderful UK memories.
Definitely one I’ve never seen in person before (or any Armstrong Siddeley for that matter) but it does look like a proper, dignified saloon. Very British indeed.
I spent a summer on a Hampshire Dairy Farm in 1971, where the owner collected and restored Armstrong-Siddeley cars for a hobby. He had one in his collection the memory of which, still mystifies me today, it was definitely badged as an A-S, complete with the Sphinx hood mascot, but was a station wagon. To the best of my recollection, it appeared to be more like a late 50’s American style body that the swoopy old-fashioned A-S sedans. I have never been able to find evidence that A-S ever built such a car. Could it have been some kind of custom shooting brake or had someone put A-S badging on an american wagon as a joke?
The front clip just isn’t good-looking IMO. From any other angle it’s OK.
The scalloped styling of the front mudguards seems to be the only modern styling feature.