Invicta

GB, 1925 – 1938, 1946 – 1950

(1) Invicta Cars, Cobham, Surrey, 1925 – 1933

(2) Invicta Cars, Chelsea, London S.W.3, 1933 – 1938

(3) Invicta Car Development Co Ltd, Virginia Water, Surrey, 1946 – 1950

In 1925 Noel Macklin and Oliver Lyle, both of them with experience of motor design and Macklin a former manufacturer as well (Eric Campbell, Silver Hawk) introduced a type of car, the Invicta car, that was quite new to the British market. The idea behind the Invicta car was to combine in an assembled car the American concept of flexibility and performance with British quality and road-holding, thus getting the best of both worlds. The engine in the Invicta car, the Meadows 2½-litre, 6-cylinder engine had push-rod overhead valves. Its low-speed torque permitted the Invicta car to accelerate from a walking pace to 60mph in top gear, but a four-speed gearbox was provided, all the same, and the Invicta car make’s sustained high-speed cruising capabilities became legendary after winning the Dewar Trophy for long-distance reliability runs in 1927 and 1929. In outward appearance the first Invicta car was very staid, and it was marred by the fact that the brakes on the Invicta car were poor. The rivets down the bonnet were copied from the Rolls-Royce. During 1926, an engine with a bigger bore, providing 3 litres, was offered on Invicta cars alongside the original unit, and by 1927 was the only one sold. In that year real speed arrived for the fist time in the shape of the 4½-litre Invicta car. This Invicta car had a larger bore still, with an 85mph maximum and really shattering acceleration in spite of pulling a 3.9:1 axle ratio. By late 1929, the 3-litre Invicta car had been dropped. The 1931 4½-litre came in two types: the Invicta 4½-litre high-chassis, and the Invicta 4½-litre ‘100-mph’ low-chassis model. The latter Invicta car was lowered by underslinging the rear springs. This invicta car was capable of 95mph.

Unfortunately the splendid Invicta car was always expensive, and its roadholding reputation was damaged among sportsmen, who were by now its most important customers, by a highly-publicized accident to S.C.H. Davis at Brooklands in 1931. In spite of a win in the Monte Carlo Rally of an Invicta car, a Coupe des Glaciers in the Alpine Trial that year and almost equal success in the same events in 1932, only about 1.000 Invicta cars were made before production ceased in 1935. Invicta tried to stave off the end by introducing a small Invicta car for a more popular market in 1932. This Invicta 12/45 was not a success because the single overhead-camshaft 6-cylinder engine, amade by Blackburne, was of only 1½-litres’ capacity. However efficient this Invicta car was, it could not cope with its heavy chassis without the aid of an axle ratio of 6:1. This gave the famed flexibility, but not the performance you would expect on an Invicta car. The 12/45 was supplemented in 1933 by the supercharged Invicta 12/90, but only a handful were made. Both Invicta cars were seen with Wilson self-changing gearbox, the weight of which cannot have helped. After Invicta ended, Macklin went on to make the Railton, a machine with the traditional Invicta car performance characteristics allied to low price. For 1938, three new Invicta cars, in 2½-, 3- and 4-litre form, were planned. All these Invicta cars were to have 6-cylinder, overhead-valve engines, all-synchromesh gearboxes, and independent front suspension by transverse spring. Nothing was seen of these Invicta cars, the chassis of which seem to have been disguised Darracqs and the bodies similar to those of the 3-litre D670 Delage.

The old Invicta name was revived briefly after World War 2, when it was attached to a luxury car called the Invicta Black Prince, powered by a 6-cylinder Meadows engine of three litres, with two overhead camshafts and two plugs per cylinder. This unit produced 120bhp at 5.000rpm. Unlike earlier Invicta cars, the car’s other characteristics were highly unconventional. There was no gearbox in the Invicta car; instead, a Brockhouse hydrokinetic turbo transmitter that provided automatic transmission on any ratio between 15:1 and 4,27:1. Suspension was independent all round, by torsion bars. But the new Invicta car was another horribly expensive car, although plans envisaged an output of 250 a year, it met the same fate as its predecessors after only a score or so had been made. AFN Ltd, manufacturers of the Frazer Nash, acquired the assets of the dead firm.

Source: Georgano, encyclopedia of motorcar; TRN

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