At home with the Alvises – Andrew Noakes uncovers a British art-deco collection
When Alvis enthusiast Steve Horne retired, maintaining his classic car collection became a second career
‘Instead of sitting inside watching TV I go out and paint chassis. I enjoy it’
Shafts of light pierce the darkness of the stable block beside Steve Horne’s rural Essex home as he cracks a heavy wooden door open. At first only a few chrome highlights are visible, but then the light picks out a handsome upright grille and two vast, chrome headlamps, and slowly as the door swings wide the low-slung shape of a Thirties Alvis emerges from the gloom. At first it’s reluctant to start, but Steve raises the passenger side of the bonnet to tickle the carburettors and then the old Alvis fires up, its booming bassy exhaust note echoing around the yard as it rolls into the open. I could look at it all day. But there are more stable doors to open, and each one has a fascinating car behind it.
It’s a collection that has come together over the last 25 years, though Steve owned classics for decades before that, trading up from a Thirties Morris Minor via an AC 16/80 to a Bentley 3½ Litre while still in his teens. Rolls-royces, Astons and more have come and gone. ‘I’ve got rather too many,’ he admits. ‘Sometimes I think to myself, why do I need so many? To me, this is my pension fund, but I’m having such good fun with it. And since I retired in 2011 some of these cars have doubled in value.’ He keeps all of them well maintained, which must border on a full-time job. ‘I enjoy it. Instead of sitting inside watching TV I go out and paint chassis.’
Alvis SA Speed 20 Vanden Plas drophead
Steve took on the Alvis in 2012 after a friend’s restoration project had ground to a halt and he offered to help sell it. ‘Then I thought I’d make an offer for it, so at least it would stay in the UK. Quite a lot of Alvis 20s and 25s go to Germany and the Netherlands. It had been turned into an estate car in the Fifties, then somebody had stripped it and turned it into a sand racer with a two-seater aluminium and pop rivet body. The sand and salt didn’t do the chassis much good.’ The plan was to recreate the original Vanden Plas drophead coachwork. ‘Thankfully we had a chap in the Alvis Owner Club who had an almost identical bodied car that wanted the timber framing renewing, so the original framework was used as templates to make his ash frame and this ash frame. It took me about nine months to finish it.”
Rolls-royce 20/25 Park Ward Brougham de Ville
Towering over the Alvis and filling every inch of the next stall is a Rolls-royce 20/25, a car that was Steve’s first automotive passion as a schoolboy in the Sixties. ‘It came up for sale with Hanwells in London which mostly does Shadows and Bentley Turbos, and isn’t into the pre-war stuff. A Taiwanese gentleman bought it and some other cars and they were all bonded and about to be shipped to Taiwan when the money disappeared, and thankfully Hanwells grabbed the cars back.’
That was when Steve first heard about it, recognising it as one of the cars featured in the Dalton Watson book Those Elegant Rollsroyce, which had fuelled his enthusiasm as a child. It appealed because of the unique Park Ward body chosen by the first owner, American heiress Evelyn St George, who did away with the usual occasional seats next to the division. The smaller rear cabin and less cramped chauffeur’s compartment made the body’s lines more harmonious. ‘Of all the cars in the book this was the one I thought was the most pretty. I was delighted to get it.’
Bentley 3½ Litre Freestone and Webb four-door saloon
Steve crunches across the gravel to open another door in the stable block, revealing a bright blue Derby Bentley known as Bertie, after the car of the same colour depicted in the children’s book Bertie the Bentley. His interest in 3½ Litres was reawakened
when vintage car restoration specialist Jonathan Wood asked him to drive one up to the Rolls-royce Enthusiasts’ Club annual rally at Burghley House. AKS410 came up for sale soon after.
‘I couldn’t resist because to me that is the prettiest Bentley 3½ Litre saloon you will ever find. Most of them are Park Ward saloons that stand a lot higher – you sit quite grandiosely. This one is like the Alvises with squat seats, a true sports saloon. Just fabulous styling with lovely voluptuous wings – I love the way they come to a sharp point, with crease lines down the centre.’ Of five built in this style, only two remain.
‘This was the Duke of Roxburghe’s car. His father died and when he got the cash, ordering this was the first thing he did.’ It had its engine rebuilt twice, after the running-in instructions were ignored the first time around and the engine seized. ‘It runs beautifully now,’ says Steve.
Alvis SD Speed 20 Charlesworth drophead
Next to the Bentley is a wide-body Alvis that resolved another long-felt want. ‘It was the car on the Players cigarette card, which I would have seen when I was a prep school boy in the Fifties. It was that model and that coachwork.’
The car went to the US in the Sixties, then Australia, and returned to the UK in the Eighties. ‘I’m trying to preserve it much in the state it’s been for many years, though it had an engine rebuild two years ago so it’s now reliable to go anywhere I want.’ It was originally black but was repainted in Buick Sequoia yellow during its time in the States. ‘It has some historical significance that it was painted there, and it shows off the chomework splendidly.’
Of all the collection the Speed 20 is the one Steve uses most. ‘It’s 100 per cent reliable, and with the 3.5-litre engine I can go anywhere and quite fast. You can drive them quite hard and they thrive on it. The fact that it’s not pristine in terms of coachwork means I can take it out in the wet or on salty roads. It gets hosed down afterwards in the winter.’
Alvis SA Vanden Plas two-door saloon
‘I said I’d sell it for the owner’s widow, so I advertised it within the club but nobody was interested. I took it to an NEC show and again nobody bought it. Fisher Restorations in Droitwich didn’t manage to sell it either and they suggested I buy it, so I did.’
The Alvis was painted black but Steve tracked down build records at the National Motor Museum that proved it had originally been grey with blue wheels, the same colour scheme as the 1932 Olympia Motor Show car. ‘I took the scuttle vents off and the edge had what looked liked grey primer where it had been trapped against the carpet – that was all that was left of the original pale grey. There was no vestige of any other colour on the car – somebody had obviously restored it in the Forties or Fifties, completely bare metal. We got the colour matched, and the build records said it had blue coachlines so I painted those on.’ The headlining was beige but Steve found remnants of the original dark blue. ‘I managed to source the only stock of dark blue suiting Worsted fabric, and it cost me £500, I think. I fitted it myself.’
It’s the last known survivor of its type, and another car that could have left the country. ‘The Germans love making specials so they probably would have ripped the body off. That had to be preserved. I spent £55,000 on the body. I wouldn’t get that back, but I couldn’t do a half job. Every panel came off, every rotten piece of wood was replaced, any slight porosity was cut out and new metal put in, and the whole lot repinned on the ash frame. It’s as good a body as you can get using all the original materials.’
Alvis TA21 Tickford drophead
Now Steve leads the way to a steel Dutch barn hidden behind the stables, brightened up by period enamel signs for Pratt’s and BP. Along the way we walk past a palette-load of Alvis engines and gearboxes Steve recently rescued, which he is slowly matching up with grateful car owners. He slides open the barn door to reveal two more Alvises under inflatable covers. ‘The TA21 came up for sale in
I spent £55,000 on the body. I wouldn’t get that back, but I couldn’t do a half job’
2005/6. The owner’s wife had it restored for him, but then he died.’ Steve saw it for sale but his wife decreed that another car had to go before he could take on the TA, and it didn’t happen. The car ended up with a friend, but he didn’t get on with the driving position and agreed to swap it for a TE21 Steve was restoring. ‘He got what he wanted, and I got what I wanted without defying my wife!’
Alvis TC108G
Next to the TA is a Graber-bodied TC108G, which Steve reverses out for us to pore over. It’s a magnificent shape, subtly different to the later British-bodied TD/TE/TF. Steve was inspired by an article in Classic Cars on the restoration of a TC108G, ‘I saw the pictures and thought it was to die for. This one came up for sale and it just had to be.’ Steve was invited to Switzerland to see it. ‘It was me being vetted if I was the right person for the car. We were tinkering with it in his garage and suddenly I heard a 3.0-litre Alvis – it was his friend who had sold him the car, in his own Alvis Graber. He thought I must be a good guy if I could recognise an Alvis from a quarter of a mile down the road, so it became mine.’ Steve drove it back from Switzerland, an epic 2000-mile trip. ‘I flew over with all the spares I could think of in my hand luggage,’ he says. ‘There was a meeting of all the Graber people in Verbier in Switzerland, so we had two or three days of driving in the Swiss Alps, then joined a French rally for a day and drove back.’
The Graber Alvis has similar appeal to his old DB4, says Steve, ‘The TC108G is a nicer car in many ways. In terms of a gentleman’s carriage to take you from A to B with style, that does it for me at a quarter of the price.’
MGA 1500 drophead
Across the yard from the barn is a former coachhouse and dairy that houses yet more stunning cars. The MGA is another recent addition to the fleet. ‘I’d love a ’Healey 100 or 100M but I didn’t want to spend £45k-£55k when you can get an MGA for £25k. I looked at ten before finding this one privately. It’s American spec converted to right-hand drive. All the California cars in black when they were new had the dark red upholstery and bright red dashboard – it looks a bit garish but that was the spec. Of all the colours the black really does make the MGA look distinguished – it makes the lines flow so much better.
‘The children love the MGA. It was used by my youngest daughter’s godfather at her wedding and driven by eldest daughter and new husband from the church for her wedding.’
Rolls-royce Phantom II Sedanca Drophead
Steve owned four Rolls-royce 20/25s at one stage, and kept resisting friends’ suggestions that he trade up to a Phantom. ‘I went to a Rolls-royce rally and saw the Phantom II there in the flesh, and it looked totally different to photos – it was to die for. So I traded two 20/25s to get that, with some cash back in my pocket.’
It’s in Continental specification, with the short chassis and the lower owner-driver steering column rake. ‘It’s for driving down to the Cote d’azur at 70mph, blowing the chickens and things out of the way.’ Originally fitted with a Hooper saloon body, it re-emerged in the Seventies as a bare chassis and a new body was built to a design drawn up in period by Park Ward but never made.
‘The new Swiss owner was such a perfectionist it took nearly 30 years. When it was done the steam went out of him and he sold it.’ The next owner spent an eye-watering £85,000 on a concoursstandard engine rebuild. Between them they ploughed at least £400,000 into the Phantom, much more than Steve paid for it in 2017. ‘The tautness of that body makes it just like driving a new Thirties car,’ he says.
The Keeper
‘The 20/25 is very important to me because of its provenance,’ Steve says. ‘But despite the fact that I’ve put a huge amount of work into some of the others, the Bentley is probably the one I would keep. It’s the lines, and the fact that it is a sports saloon, and it goes nicely. It’s not as rorty as the Alvises but it has that refinement – the silent sports car. Perhaps it’s the one to grow old with.’