The Highest Standard: Discovering One of Britain's First V8s

• 
• 
• 

The Flying Standards, with their teardrop-shaped bodies, were probably the best-looking offerings in the British family-car market of the late 1930s, but it would be a stretch to call them exciting. Under their semi-streamlined shell, they were pretty conventional. All of them, that is, bar one: the Flying V8.

After Ford won the hearts of American motorists when it introduced the first truly affordable V8 in 1932, the British reaction was pretty inert, but two manufacturers, Standard and Riley, were inquisitive enough to commence their own investigations into V8 power. Flying V8 production commenced in 1937, utilising a 2686cc engine similar in its design to Ford’s. At £349, the fact that it was £114 more expensive (being finished to a much higher standard) than the 3622cc Ford did not bode well for its future, but that was besides the point; the Flying V8 was clearly produced very much in the spirit of experimentation.

Standard’s John Black commissioned only 250 engines, and just five complete cars still exist. Possibly the most remarkable, and certainly the most original survivor, has just been put back on the road after a 40-year hibernation. It must be the luckiest, too; its fate might have been very different had it not succeeded in helping its owners escape Austria before the Nazi annexation in 1938. With a host of fascinating features, including its original fitted luggage set, still intact, Zack Stiling discovers an unsung hero of 1930s motoring in the July issue of The Automobile, on sale now.

Words by Zack Stiling; photographs by Reverendpixel

Kommentar abgeben...