The joys of owning a Fourteen gives the opportunity to embellish our homes and garages with a wide range of Fourteen related items. Mugs, cushions etc. have long been on offer but now ranges have expanded greatly hence this company offering bath towels and many other products that can be printed up with a picture of your pride and joy. What a delightful opportunity to surprise someone with a bath towel embellished with the photo of your favourite vehicle and what a talking point around the pool. Valentines Day is of course coming up soon.

Yes, this is a towel!! see Pixels.com

There are plenty of Companies offering these services also including full length curtains!

Some historic items come up on a regular basis such as the TA and TB 14 cards from Kelloggs sets. The TB 14 card sold before Christmas for £4.99 + p&p. One now available at Card Hawk for £7. The Carbodies card is still available for the modest price of £1.99 + p&p. Both on eBay. Also up for £7 with Card Hawk, cardhawk.com. A nice thing to add to your collection of Fourteen related ephemera.

Replica historic tax discs are another popular item and useful if you do not have one already, several firms can supply to order. Nice to get one for the original year of your car, again several companies offering these.

Watch faces with your car are another product and several online sites show examples of watches with Alvis cars on the dials or maybe they could put your own photo as the watch face. Standard watch circa £22.

Books come into the frame too with these samples. Chance to get the grandchildren involved

Longstone tyres have long been a popular provider of tyres for Alvis cars. A useful section of their website gives the recommendations for both TA & TB 14s in terms of Crossply or Radial tyres, worth reading at longstonetyres.co.uk. Personally chassis 21830 ‘Aunty May’ always specifies Avon Tourist Crossply tyres when time for new boots.

Colin Newby’s Article ‘problems with your waterworks’ is an example of the detailed knowledge some people have with their lifetime experience working with Alvis cars.

The Alvis Owner Club is very fortunate to have the experience of Colin as their TA 14 Technical Advisor with his wealth of knowledge relating to Fourteens.

Should you live in East Anglia you will now have the opportunity to see a very rare ‘Mulliners’ driving around. Look closely and you will however see subtle differences as the car is in actual fact bodied by Car Panels of Nuneaton. Chassis 21016 is the only known Saloon bodied by Car Panels and only one other Fourteen is believed to have been bodied by them and its fate is unknown. She was an adventurous girl in the past judging by the surrounding snow!

Below is a write up by a former owner of a trip made in 1997to discover the home of Car Panels in Nuneaton.

Another car that has recently changed hands is chassis 21776 a Mulliners Saloon. Originally exported to Australia in 1948 she wore the registration number TA 1447. Good to see that 75 years on she is still going strong and about to embark on a new life still staying in Oz. An unusual registration and rather attractive colour scheme is shown in the photo below.

We are very fortunate to have considerable numbers of high quality Alvis fettlers and restorers. Quite interesting to set aside some time and browse their websites some of which are listed below.

Red Triangle (Kenilworth0 is redtriangle.co.uk

Earley Engineering Ltd. (Herefordshire) is earleyeng.com

Fisher (Worcestershire)is fisherrestoration.co.uk 

Hightone Restorations Ltd. (Oxfordshire) is Hightone.co.uk

M.C.I. no email address but a go to for service and repair in the north west and with particular specialist knowledge of Fourteens. Email mick.fletcher@totalise.co.uk

The Motorist is themotorist.com

Tim Walker (Buckinghamshire) is timwalkerrestorations.co.uk

Plenty more interesting websites shown under Suppliers and Services on this site. Anyone with a recommendation for excellent work can write in so that we can share the information.

For TB 14 owners there has always been a dearth of information about the Coachbuilder, A.P.Metalcraft. Very kindly the Herbert Museum has provided some notes that help to flesh out the bones for us. 

Should this whet the appetite of a non TB 14 Fourteen enthusiast there is a lovely one currently up for sale in Austria. Ruby,  chassis 23577 has been out in Austria for about 10 years and is available for an asking price of 120 000 euros. She is a lovely car and yes she has had the cocktail cabinet fitted!

Should you just want to enjoy the experience of driving along in a TB 14 see chassis 23555 in the TB 14 Gallery. then sit back, relax and feel the wind in your hair. Just remember in this car there is a Chevy V8 under the bonnet!

In carandclassic.co.uk there are not many new offerings but relevant to note that Doris is available for sale and well worth a look if you are considering a Mulliners Saloon and priced at £13 495. She is one of the later   cars with the Mulliners Saloon bodies and well known to the Alvis Owner Club.

As our cars were coachbuilt there was some latitude for prospective owners to add to the not insignificant costs and specify extras. One Carbodies, chassis  23378 is the only known one to have been fitted with quarter lights as shown in the photo. Quite a good extra in the days before air conditioning.

Finally the sun is starting to shine and time to start brushing off the dust and thinking about a wash and brush up- for the car of course!

eileen4ta.tb14s@eileen4tatb14s