Lanchester LD10 Saloon

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'Autocar' once wrote that of the 36 primary features in modern motorcars, Frederick Lanchester designed and developed 18 of them. 

A polymath, engineer and inventor, Lanchester designed Britain's first ever petrol-driven four-wheeled motorcar in 1895. He also pioneered many other features that we now take for granted including: turbochargers, fuel injection, disc brakes, detachable wire wheels and the torsional vibration damper.

The Lanchester LD 10 was a high quality small saloon produced between 1946 and 1951. Built on a sturdy chassis, the LD 10 retained the time-honoured fluid flywheel pre-selector transmission while introducing coil sprung independent front suspension as a new feature. The 1.3-litre engine was of OHV configuration and developed 40bhp, sufficient to propel the car to 69mph. Early cars had all steel bodies by Briggs but some later ones had coachbuilt aluminium bodywork by Barker.

This uprightly handsome Barker-bodied LD10 was first registered in Ely in December 1950. The car spent most of its life in the town of Chatteris, passing through four local owners until it was bought by a Mr PA Hewitt in August 1979 (mileage then at 66,321). Hewitt kept the car until about 1994 when the mileage was 86,652. It was then sold on and became part of the Stondon Museum Collection in late 1997 with the odometer reading 86,733 – a figure the museum believes to be genuine.

Originally registered as BJE951 with the old style brown log book, a DVLA form V351 shows the number replaced by MFO 829 in March 1996. It comes with its original handbook and spare parts manual along with three old MOT certificates and a 1997 tax disc.

From an engineering point of view, these are an interesting car to drive, The pre-selector gearbox takes a little getting used to, but is smooth and very swift once mastered. A characterful and thoughtful choice for the individualist.