Guy Loveridge – 1953 Lanchester 14

Introduced as the last motor car to bear the Lanchester name, the post Second World War 14 was a final roll of the dice.

Lanchester, by then part of the Daimler combine, were struggling to find their own identity and the 14 was a way of using Daimler body panels and a four cylinder engine as opposed to the more costly six cylinder of the equivalent Daimler.

Bringing the cubic capacity down to under two litres gave benefits in the then current RAC rated ‘Horse Power Tax’. The cars were properly coachbuilt by Barkers following their own design and built in steel over wood frames, although export models, named ‘Leda’ were all steel and thus considerably lighter. It lasted in production only from 1950 to 1953, having replaced the essentially pre-war design of the '10' (which itself had lasted from 1946 to 1951) thus becoming the rather sad swan song of the once pioneering and celebrated Lanchester name.

This being said, the almost identically styled Daimler Conquest did remain in production for another five years, only leaving the range in 1958. Total production of the Lanchester 14 was around 2100 examples and it was followed by a brace of prototypes, really tidied up developments of the 14 and Leda which were to be called ‘Sprites’. None of these were ever sold.

This 1953 example was, quite literally, pulled through a hedge backwards in order to provide spares for a Monte Carlo Rallye Touristique competition car project late in 2023.

It somehow seems appropriate that ‘two became one’ and that the other car is running around happily whilst this example sits rather forlornly exactly as it was recovered.

Whilst it looks pretty rough, there is plenty that could be recovered, including the wheels, instruments, gear box, back axle and engine block, head and crank case. A brave soul could take it on and these are rare, its believed that fewer than 75 survive. Anyone fancy the challenge?