Alvis Car and Engineering Company Ltd
Alvis for Individuality
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| Private company | |
| Industry | Automotive industry |
| Successor | Rover Company |
| Founded | Coventry, England 1919 |
| Founder | Thomas George John |
| Defunct | 1967 |
| Headquarters | Coventry, England |
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Number of locations
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Production locations: Coventry, England: |
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Area served
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Worldwide |
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Key people
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Thomas George John Chief Engineer, Aero Engine Division, 1922–72 |
| Products | Automobiles, military vehicles, aircraft engines |
| Website | www |
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Footnotes / references |
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Thomas George John
Chairman and Managing Director, 1919–44
Geoffrey de Freville
John Joseph Parkes
Chairman and Managing Director, 1946–73
George Thomas Smith-Clarke
Chief Engineer and General Manager, 1922–50
William M. Dunn
Chief Engineer, Vehicle Division, 1922–59
Alvis Car and Engineering Company Ltd was a British manufacturing company in Coventry from 1919 to 1967. In addition to automobiles designed for the civilian market, the company also produced racing cars, aircraft engines, armoured cars and other armoured fighting vehicles.
Car manufacturing ended after the company became a subsidiary of Rover in 1965, but armoured vehicle manufacture continued. Alvis became part of British Leyland and then in 1982 was sold to United Scientific Holdings, which renamed itself Alvis plc.
The original company, T.G. John and Company Ltd., was founded in 1919 by Thomas George John (1880–1946). Its first products were stationary engines, carburetors and motorscooters. Following complaints from the Avro aircraft company whose logo bore similarities to the original winged green triangle, the more familiar inverted red triangle incorporating the word "Alvis" evolved. On 14 December 1921 the company officially changed its name to The Alvis Car and Engineering Company Ltd. Geoffrey de Freville (1883–1965) designed the first Alvis engine and is also responsible for the company name.
The origin of the name Alvis has been the subject of a great deal of speculation over the years. Some have suggested that de Freville proposed the name Alvis as a compound of the words "aluminium" and "vis" (meaning "strength" in Latin), or perhaps it may have been derived from the Norse mythological weaponsmith, Alvíss. De Freville however vigorously rejected all of these theories. In 1921 he specifically stated that the name had no meaning whatsoever, and was chosen simply because it could be easily pronounced in any language. He reaffirmed this position in the early 1960s, stating that any other explanations for the source of the name were purely coincidental.
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Wikipedia