by Clive Taylor
2019 review by Peter McFadyen
As part of their celebration of the centenary of the Alvis marque, the Alvis Owner Club are publishing this car by car survey of existing Alvises which have been used in competition of one sort or another from short sprints to the longest international endurance rallies and seemingly everything else in between. The information has been supplied mostly by the current owners and compiled into this well produced limited edition volume by British ex-patriot and New Zealand resident Alvis owner Clive Taylor.
The book is divided into three sections, the Vintage Period (1919-1931), Post Vintage (1932-1940) and Post War (1945-1967) with each car being given two or four pages of text and photographs. In all, 89 cars are described beginning with details including model, registration, chassis, engine and car numbers, body maker(s) and, in many cases, the car’s nickname. The car’s history and the story of its acquisition and use by the present owner follows, accompanied by typically three to six photographs. Some of the photographs have been supplied professionally and specifically for this publication while many more come from the contributing owner’s collections and while quality of some of the originals is unavoidably variable, all are reproduced well and at a reasonable size.
Alvis Cars in Competition thus provides a very useful reference to a wide range of sporting cars all the more so thanks to the comprehensive indexing which Taylor has compiled. In addition to a general index, cars are indexed by owner’s name, car model, registration number and nickname. By way of appendices there is a section on the annually awarded Hulbert Memorial Trophy with a listing of winners, an international listing of Alvis clubs and their contact details and an Alvis bibliography.
The Alvis Owner Club have funded and produced the book as a limited edition with nearly all the first print run already snapped up by pre-orders. Remaining copies can be ordered via the Club’s web site where mention is also made of a possible further print run so, like the book itself, a quick response is recommended.
Publisher: Amberley Publishing / Alvis Owner Club. www.alvisoc.org/alvis-in-competition
Price: £25.
Description: Softback (9.25 by 6.5in). 286 pages with hundreds of b&w and colour illustrations.
ISBN: 978-1-4456-9649-2
Leave a Comment