. . . all you need to know about Invicta
Born: 1925 Nationality: British
Though filmdom may have decided that Aston Martin and later, BMW, should be the James Bond car, in truth the Invicta marque is probably the most deserving of that title.
But that was somewhat later than when the brand was first conceived, after a former racing driver, Captain Albert Macklin, decided that he wanted to produce a car that would offer its owners "effortless performance".
Power without much gearchanging was the requirement of the wife of one of his backers, the Lyle brothers, who were part of the sugar-producing empire in partnership with a Tate. Massive torque was the deal in a time when automatic transmission was not a norm.
Macklin had built a prototype Invicta powered by a 2-litre Coventry-Climax engine and he converted this car to take a long-stroke 2.5-litre six-cylinder Meadows engine which was so torquey that owners only needed to use the first and fourth ratios of the four-speed gearbox in normal driving. Later, when a 4.5-litre engine was introduced, drivers could select top gear after reaching as little as 6 mph in first, and then go all the way to the 90 mph top speed without any difficulty.
Macklin had an obsession that his cars should be at least equal to the Rolls Royce and Bentley standard-makers of the time, and on that basis he offered a Rolls-type three-year chassis guarantee and entered the kind of endurance tests that would establish his cars as among the best of their era.
His sister-in-law, Violet Cordery, set driving records in Britain, France, Italy and other countries around the world. Indeed, she drove around the world in 1927 averaging 27 mph, and a year later, partnered by her sister Evelyn, averaged almost 62 mph over a 21-day endurance run at Brooklands.
A luminary of motor sports of the time, Donald Healey, used Violet's 3-litre car to win the class in the Alpine Trial, and in 1931 won the Monte Carlo Rally outright. Healey, a sports car competition enthusiast later to make his own fame as a car designer, at the time said it was his "greatest ever win".
In 1931, an Invicta won its class in the Tourist Trophy at Ards in Northern Ireland, averaging more than 70mph. But the Great Depression and its worldwide car market repercussions took their toll on a car designed and built only for the very rich, and in 1933, despite a price-dropping programme that wasn't allied to a cost-cutting one, Invicta died. The date of closure was apt - Friday 13th.
We fast-forward to October 22nd, 2002, and after a very successfully-secret two years, a new Invicta Car Company reveals a two-seater GT sports coupé at the British Motor Show. With a carbon-fibre body, a Ford Mustang V8 with 320 bhp, it had leather and after that every possible option in bespoke possibilities. The 100-litre fuel tank of the Invicta S1 that was handed over to its first customer in September of 2003 offered the owner a real, if expensive, Grand Tour ability of 500 miles.
The Bond connection? Well, in the Donald Healey competition days, on one Alpine Rally, his navigator was Ian Fleming, who later wrote the original James Bond novels. Invicta revived might yet make the 007 grade?
Best Car: There have to be two - the one which went around the world guided by Violet Cordery and today, the S1.
Worst Car: Don't be silly.
Weirdest Car: See Worst Car.
... - Brian Byrne