GEOFFREY TAYLOR AND ALTA CARS
The Alta story starts in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, in 1927, when Geoffrey Taylor, a young engineer working for the ABC car company, decided to build his own sports car from scratch. By November 1928 the car was ready, right down to a homebuilt 1074cc all-aluminium twin-cam engine, all created in the stable block of the family home. The car was named Alta, after a town in Alberta, Canada, which Taylor had come across in a novel.
Taylor subsequently set up the Alta Car and Engineering Company in January 1931, and between then and 1935 he built 12 Alta ‘1100’ sports cars. He also devised his own Roots-type superchargers and developed an improved 1500cc version of his engine; from that came a run of six 1500cc racers and seven roadgoing sports cars. The ultimate pre-war Altas followed: three supercharged racers with all-independent sliding-pillar suspension, the best capable of challenging the works 2-litre ERAS.
Government contract work and developing Ford’s V8 for marine use kept the Tolworth works busy, while a further earner was an Austin Seven aluminium cylinder head that showed the potential for bolt-on tuning gear for popular cars.
Post-war, Taylor built a run of 1.5-litre supercharged Grand Prix cars, and from these he developed an unsupercharged 2-litre car for Formula Two. The unblown unit also powered the successful HWM racers and was used by Connaught, and it was this use of Alta engines that thrust the firm to prominence.
The 2.5-litre Alta unit powered the B-series Grand Prix Connaught, and this car, driven by Tony Brooks, took a historic GP win at Syracuse in 1955, marking the beginning of Britain’s establishment at the forefront of Formula One.
In 1956, after completing a last batch of 2.5-litre engines and dogged by ill-health, Taylor closed the Alta works. By that time he had diversified into the overhead-valve Morris head, which was launched in 1954. Few writers bother to mention this in their reviews of Alta history, despite estimated production of around 2000 heads.