Description
Author: Gillian Bardsley, Softbound, 68 Pages, ISBN: 978858580110 - 1st Edition, April 1993 - VERY RARE BOOK IN EXCELLENT CONDITION !!
The heyday of handbuilt luxury cars, on such chassis as Alvis Armstrong Siddeley and Lea Francis with coachbuilt bodies by Cross and Ellis, has been carefully researched.
This monograph describes the history and the products of Coventry coach builders Cross and Ellis. Heavily illustrated.
AUTHOR'S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There are many people who have contributed so greatly to this study thatiWithout any one of them, it would not have been completed. First of all, I must thank Mrs I W Nichols, who began the whole thing by drawing my attention to the photographs of her father's firm. I was the Information Officer at Coventry Transport Museum at the time, and Mrs Nichols generously lent her original prints (which arc reproduced here) so that the museum could have copies made.
As I looked into the background of these pictures I discovered that Cross & Ellis was a highly regarded yet largely undocumented firm, and decided to try and find out something about them. I must thank Barry Littlewood and the Coventry Transport Museum for their generous provision of facilities to conduct several interviews with former Cross & Ellis employees. Their assistance was invaluable. I am also grateful to Coventry Record Office for their help in going through the substantial Alvis archive held there. I am of course indebted to the interviewees who shared memories of their working lives, in particular Douglas Pettifer and Albert Buxton. There are also extracts from articles by Peter Wright in the 1973 and 1974 Alvis Register Bulletins based on interviews with Ray Ellis and Ray Webb.
Thanks are due to the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust, especially archivist Anders Ditley Clausagcr, who provided advice and encouragement in the gathering of background material and supplied several excellent photographs illustrating coachbuilding practices in the interwar period. Norman Barber, Alan Blacow and Alan Stote kindly made their cars available for the beautiful contemporary photographs which were taken by Roger McDonald. Finally, the following pages would never have reached publication without the enthusiasm and determination of Alastair and Veronica Graham Bryce, whose optimism and faith will, I hope, be fully repaid.
Gillian Bardsley
