1945 Lanchester LE27 Allweather Tourer by Vanden Plas

Lanchester displayed an impressive array of cars at the Olympia Motor Show in October 1930, however, just weeks later financial troubles culminated in the company’s bank calling in its overdraft of £38,000 forcing immediate liquidation of the company’s assets. A buyer was sought by the bank and, given the company’s proximity to BSA’s Armourer Mills in Sparkbrook, a sale to BSA seemed a perfect fit. The acquisition was completed in January 1931 for just £26,000, significantly lower than the value of the firm’s assets, however, despite promises to the contrary, BSA aggressively asset-stripped the Lanchester factory and moved production to Sandy Lane in Coventry, the home of Daimler.

George Lanchester’s services were retained as a Senior Designer with Frank becoming the Sales Director and the reborn company’s first new model, the Lanchester Eighteen was designed by George but, in reality was a version of the Daimler Light Twenty as was to be the case with the following models.

Lanchester’s customers were particularly loyal and weren’t impressed with, what we would now call, 'badge engineering'. One fiercely loyal customer was His Highness the Maharajah Ranjitsinhji, the Jam Sahib of Nawanagar (known to his friends as Ranji). Ranji fell in love with the Lanchester marque when he went to play cricket in India in the early 1900s, during the days of the British Raj. He befriended Lanchester brothers Frederick and George, who were the first to manufacture an all-British car in 1896 and shared their enthusiasm for this new form of transport. He bought his first Lanchester, a 9kW two-cylinder model, in 1904 and after that, whenever a new model was introduced, at least one was shipped to India to add to his collection.

We have no record of Ranji’s expanding fleet of Lanchesters (no doubt there will be one somewhere) apart from #3462, a 1936 Daimler V-type chassis bodied by Vanden Plas and 'dressed' as a Lanchester which was gifted to Ranji’s great nephew, Maharaja Durgapratapsinh, as an 18th birthday present in 1964 and which came up for auction in New Zealand in 2010.

The arrival of World War II changed everything and Lanchester look-alike, Daimlers, were no longer steaming their way across the Indian Ocean. However, in 1946, Ranji felt the need to add a couple of more cars to his fleet. The war-hardened management at Daimler were not really in the mood to start painting cars in Cambridge Blue (all Ranji’s cars were painted in that colour as that’s where he went to University) and have their diminished number of time-served craftsmen spend time creating special grilles etc. to turn their DE 27s into a Lanchester model that never existed but, inevitably, they capitulated as long as Ranji ordered four.

Four DE 27, 4-litre, six-cylinder Daimlers (coded LE27) were duly commissioned with two of them, chassis numbers #51049 and #51050, being bodied by Vanden Plas as ‘Allweathers’ (Body nos. 4031 and 4032) and LE27, -#51050, is the car we are privileged to be able to offer today.

We now move forward over 40 years when it appears that #51050 returned to the UK and was first registered as KYM 544 on 20/09/88. It was subsequently purchased by Gerry Wheeler, our vendor’s late father on 1/02/2008 and there is a photograph within the history file of the car on a trailer, finished in cream and red, and looking a bit sorry for itself. There followed a gentle restoration to Gerry’s particularly high standards over several years returning the car to top form prior to it joining the family’s fleet of very impressively-presented vintage and PVT cars available for special occasions, birthdays, proms, and weddings etc.

As you can see from our images, the Lanchester has been returned to Cambridge Blue with Royal Blue wings and detailing and a matching soft-top. The interior has been fully retrimmed and re-upholstered in a delightful pastel blue leather and is now ‘Maharajah’ quality. With a fleet of around 20 early cars and having fully restored it, all maintenance and servicing requirements were carried out in-house.

The car is accompanied by its current V5C, old insurance and DVLA documents, a variety of MOTs with the oldest from 1988, wiring diagrams, correspondence and a number of photographs.

We understand that #51050’s LE27 Allweather twin sister #51049 was shipped to the USA in the 1990s and, assuming it still survives, it would be wonderful to reunite them at Pebble Beach one day. We invite and encourage your inspection of this rather special ‘Maharajah’ car to appreciate the quality on offer.