We are now entering the year of Celebrations marking the 100th Anniversary of the founding of Alvis by T.G. John.

Globally there will be events to mark this auspicious occasion and Uruguay has entered into the Anniversary with great enthusiasm.

The Museum at Rio Branco, Cerro Largo, Northern Uruguay has this TA 14, chassis 21697 that will proudly fly the flag for the marque.

Our own Fourteen involvement began with these 3 cars ready to leave the Factory with their Dealers in 1946. For more details go the main Alvis Archive Site, alvisarchive.com and scroll down the index to War and Peace.

We do know that a Director of The Dorchester drove a TA 14, (what else) so the market was there for these great vehicles.

There are a very good selection of Fourteens currently for sale on carandclassic this month with a selection of Saloons and Dropheads some of which are passing out from long term cherished ownership.

A very interesting letter appeared in the latest Bulletin 578, Page 97 of the Alvis Owner Club. Referring to a Company called Scott Am of Stoke on Trent, it demonstrated how useful 3D printing can be for the owners of Classic Cars. In this instance rear light lenses for pre-war Alvis cars. The case in point now is an owner who is currently missing one of the chromed levers on the steering wheel. So far we have not been able to find a replacement but this could be an excellent case for taking one off and having it 3D printed. Details for Scott Am are on Suppliers and Services.

Whilst still in August there is just time for another ‘Silly Season’ story so here goes with another dog and this time an aerosol can.

No knowledge as to whether the car has survived!

A very tenuous link to Fourteens next but information provided by an American owner about a weird Pre War Burney R 100 car built on an Alvis chassis led to viewing a clip of 2 of cars actually motoring around London. Passing this information on to the Archive Motoring Historian produced details of a Tata 603 film clip of about 12 minutes long. Quite an ‘interesting’ film clip on YouTube from 1962 and rather in the style of ‘Norman Wisdom’.

Should you have a spare 15 minutes as the evenings lengthen the films can be strongly recommended. Google the Burney car and also the ‘Tatra 603 Happy Journey’ and bear with the first minute or so.

Don’t try and recreate the rolling over clip!

The old car movement in Scandinavia always appears buoyant, helped to a large degree by good relatively empty roads. A recent City Race, the Sports Cars day at Vastervik showed the participation of a TB 14 that shares her garage with 2 more. On https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsPINGs_RHk  the TB 14 can be seen after 31 minutes and joined by 3 other Alvis cars, including a 14 drophead after 1hr 17 minutes so you can scroll for the Alvis cars or enjoy the whole event.

Whilst we have quite a considerable list of Celebrity Fourteen owners one of the most colourful must have ‘been David Bunty’ Scott-Montcrieff.

Known always as Bunty, to describe him as a car dealer does not sound quite right, he was a car placer perhaps, the right car with the right people. They certainly don’t make em like this anymore!

Over time there have been stories and photos of unusual things people manage to do with Fourteens. One of the strangest must be the story of the 1949 Carbodies, chassis 23205, in America. The car was based in San Francisco and was used on a regular basis. Nothing new there except for the fact that the car had been fitted with American truck springs. Subsequently to keep the car level it was necessary to put 500lbs of steel in the boot. Seeing is believing!

ARB 14, chassis 22548 was owned by Ron Buck and was was a very successful Concours and Driving Test Car. Not only was the car always in mint Concours condition but also driven hard when necessary. Note the lean that can be achieved on the race track. Not quite the performance of the Tatra but impressive.

Keeping with the theme ofHHHHH Speed, in the 1980s another Drophead, Chassis 22298 was entering Sprint competitions and doing quite well.

Finally you may occasionally have some confusion about more than one TA/TB 14 made by Alvis.

In the 1920s a TA 14.75 was made looking nothing like our model so this is the .75 to avoid confusion. Later a TB 1475 was built.

Happy Motoring!

eileen4ta.tb14s@rocketmail.com