{"id":79100,"date":"2021-09-01T09:17:13","date_gmt":"2021-09-01T09:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.secret-classics.com\/?p=79100"},"modified":"2021-09-03T13:17:05","modified_gmt":"2021-09-03T13:17:05","slug":"lea-francis-ace-of-spades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.secret-classics.com\/en\/lea-francis-ace-of-spades\/","title":{"rendered":"Lea-Francis Ace of Spades"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lea-Francis is one of the oldest car brands in the world, but is almost unknown. Yet the brand’s history is quite exciting and extends, with interruptions, to the year 1998. It all began with a bicycle factory run by the entrepreneurs Richard Henry Lea and Graham Francis. This existed from 1895 in Coventry. From 1903, the company also manufactured automobiles, and in 1911, motorcycles were added to the product range. Initially, Singer vehicles were produced under license. It wasn’t until 1919 that they began to produce own cars. Three years later, the company entered into a partnership with Vulcan in order to share the dealer network and production facilities and thus save money. Thus, Vulcan made the bodies while Lea-Francis made transmissions and steering systems. When Vulcan ceased car production in 1928, the cooperation ended. By this time, Lea-Francis had already built up a sporty image. This was due in part to the S-Type “Hyper”, the first British production car with a supercharged engine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Short history of Lea-Francis<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

With the Hyper, Lea-Francis won the Ulster TT in Northern Ireland in 1928 in front of more than 250,000 spectators. This success translated into good sales figures. In 1937, George Leek took over the management and made the model program even sportier and more luxurious. With the beginning of World War 2, the company switched to the production of armaments. It wasn’t until 1946 that the company continued with slightly modified pre-war cars. New models didn’t appear until four years later. Through a cooperation with Connaught Engineering, ready-to-drive chassis of the 14 HP Sports were converted there into the L2 and L3 sports cars. After the Lynx debuted in 1960 as a 2+2-seater roadster with a tubular frame chassis, financial problems put an end to production in 1962. By this time, nearly 10,000 Lea-Francis cars had been built. Due to empty coffers, the Lynx could only have gone into production through prepaid advance orders. However, the design seemed too old-fashioned for the intended clientele.<\/p>\n\n\n

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