Born: 1919 Nationality: BritishThough Armstrong Siddeley wasn't established until after WWI, founder John Davenport Siddeley had been involved in carmaking since 1902 when he established the Siddeley Autocar Company.
Using Peugeot components at first, the firm was soon building its own cars completely and by 1905 had a dozen different models.
Siddeley joined Wolseley that year, and for the next four years his cars were Wolseley-Siddeleys. In 1909 he moved to the Deasy Motor Company and from 1912 that operation became Siddeley-Deasy.
A switch to making aero engines, airframes, ambulances, trucks and army staff cars, made Siddeley-Deasy a very wealthy company and in 1919 it merged with its supplier for the light castings of its aero engines, Armstrong Whitworth, forming Armstrong Siddeley.
The new brand's first car was the 30, with a 5-litre engine and of a quality that attracted owners such as the Duke of York, later to be George VI. It continued in production until 1932, beside a range of tourers and saloons including the 3-litre 18 Mk II.
The Siddeley Special that replaced the 30 had the same engine but was available in a range of styles, including a roadster with a short wheel-base which could do 90mph and a long wheel-base limousine that weighed two and a half tons. The 1934 17 had a 2.4-litre power unit.
Through the mid-1930s, the range included the 1.7-litre 14, the 3.7-litre 25s with a variety of chassis and body options, and closer to the outbreak of WW II the 2-litre 16 and the 2.8-litre 20. The marque's reputation was well established for luxury and refinement, and innovations that underpinned this included a pre-selector gearbox using the Wilson Epicyclical fluid flywheel drive.
A merger with Hawker Aircraft in 1935 to form Hawker-Siddeley consolidated the continuing aircraft side of the enterprise though leaving both businesses as autonomous operations.
John Siddeley retired in 1936, subsequently becoming Lord Kenilworth.
The group built aircraft, tank components and torpedo motors in WWII, expanding its reputation and workforce to be one of the largest in Britain. It moved into gas turbine engines for turbo-prop and jet applications.
The pre-war Armstrong Siddeley 16 was re-introduced in 1945, with a significant upgrade of its 2-litre engine. Very soon afterwards the company announced a new series of cars which would be named after the various aircraft that it had built during the war. First was the Hurricane drophead coupé, powered by a 2.3-litre engine. It was followed by the Lancaster saloon and the Typhoon coupé. The Whitley saloon was introduced in 1950.
The new luxury Sapphire (pictured) was shown at the 1952 London Motor Show. It too had aircraft connotations, being named after one of the company's best-known aero engines. Its 3.4-litre engine could bring the car to a very respectable 100mph. It was joined by two smaller-engined variants in 1956, the Sapphire 234 which could provide sporty performance from its four-cylinder engine and the 236 which concentrated more on refinement with its lower-powered six.
The original Sapphire was the basis for the last car to be produced by Armstrong Siddeley - the Star Sapphire of 1958 had a 4-litre engine and its quality and performance were to the highest standards of cars of the era. It was also among the first production cars to have front-wheel disc brakes.
The 1960 merger of Hawker Siddeley and Bristol Aircraft led to the untimely demise of the Armstrong Siddeley carmaking business. The subsequent Bristol-Siddeley company was acquired by Rolls Royce in 1966.
BEST CAR: Aficionados would say the Siddeley Special
WORST CAR: Never built
WEIRDEST CAR: Never conceived