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Visitors to next month’s Goodwood Festival of Speed will get to see the first steps towards the reintroduction of the Alvis 4.3 Litre, a model originally launched in 1937 and sold for just three years.

166 4.3 Litre chassis were originally made but Red Triangle - the firm that took over the complete stock of parts, nearly 22,000 Car Records, works drawings, correspondence files and data sheets after Alvis ceased all car manufacturing in 1967 - discovered there were 77 more chassis officially sanctioned. However, these were never built because the war halted production in 1940.



The newly-formed Alvis Car Company has been set up to manufacture these ‘missing’ chassis and their accompanying 4.3 litre straight-six engines as a continuation series. Examples of both will be displayed for the first time at Goodwood.



To ensue authenticity, the original technical drawings are being used as the basis for production, albeit allied to the benefits of CAD / CAM technology. The engine, which made the Alvis 4.3 Litre the quickest non-supercharged production car of its time, will also remain faithful to the original design. That is apart from a couple of changes: so that it complies with emissions standards, very un-1930s fuel injection and engine management will feature.



It’s planned that other carefully selected Alvis models will also get the continuation treatment in the future.