V8 Invicta rekindles pioneering spirit of 1920s motoring

It was the best-kept motoring secret of the year. A British-built 270km/h sports car called the Invicta S1 wowing audiences at the British motor show. Invicta Car Company? What's it all about?

First, the car itself. Already the company has received many orders for the two-seater, powered by a 4.6-litre V8 engine producing 240kW.

Said company chairman Michael Bristow: "Response to the S1 was overwhelmingly positive. They liked the looks, the build quality, and the price (about $210,000).

"They appreciated that the S1 was not a concept car and was shown ready for production."

Bristow says the Invicta S1 is the world's first car to feature a one-piece carbon-fibre bodyshell bonded to the steel tube spaceframe chassis to create a strong, but lightweight, structure. It will be hand-built at the factory in Wiltshire. Production will start in January.

The Invicta Car Company started in the early 1920s. It was the creation of Captain Albert Noel Campbell Macklin, an English motoring enthusiast and former racing driver. He was later knighted.

He was inspired by the desire to offer motorists effortless performance. Backed by his neighbours, Oliver and Philip Lyle (of Tate & Lyle sugar fame), Macklin set out to build a robust car with enormous pulling power that demanded little or no gear-changing. His neighbour's wife, Mrs Eileen Lyle, wanted such a car.

Macklin also wanted his creation to offer European standards of roadholding and handling, while matching the best of Amercian cars for strength and power.

In 1925, working in the three-car garage of his country house, Macklin converted the original 2-litre Coventry-Climax-engined Invicta prototype to house a 2.5-litre six-cylinder, long-stroke, high-torque Meadows engine.

In this form, the Invicta began to fullfil many of its founder's dreams and the 2.5-litre model went on sale priced at £595. The body was extra, as was the custom at that time. Another engine was built, of 3-litre capacity.

Although supplied with a four-speed gearbox, most Invicta owners were expected to use just first and fourth gear, such was the flexibility of the engine.

British magazine Motor said of the Invicta at the time: "There are probably not more than one or two other makes of car in the world that can compare, for acceleration, with the 4.5-litre Invicta Sports and no car with a comparable performance in top gear. The engine had such enormous reserves of torque that drivers could select fourth top gear at just 6mph (10km/h) and accelerate cleanly and rapidly all the way to its 90mph-plus (145km/h) top speed."

Macklin insisted all along that the quality of his Invicta cars should match Rolls-Royce and their performance should challenge Bentley.

Early in the marque's life, Macklin was confident that those two goals had been met, so the Invicta became the only other British car to have a three-year chassis guarantee, just like Rolls-Royce.

To highlight the car's combination of performance and durability, a series of endurance runs was undertaken, the first by his sister-in-law Violet Cordery, a pioneering woman driver.

Miss Cordery set record-breaking performances in Britain, France, and Italy. In Paris, her 3-litre Invicta averaged 70.7mph (114km/h) during an RAC-observed 5000-mile (8000km) endurance run. In Italy, she broke four world and 33 Italian records at Monza.

Later Macklin switched from endurance runs to hill climbs and rallies. His crowning glory came in 1931 when British driver Donald Healey won the Monte Carlo Rally, the first British car to do so.