A very British Eight

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Wolseley: a nice, sensible marque building solid, comfortable and unpretentious cars. Hardly the sort of marque to take an enormous financial risk and divert all its attention to the manufacture of a costly white elephant for which there is no known market, right? In the years post-1935, when Wolseley fell under the sage paternal influence of Morris Motors and later BMC, such a thought would be correct. However, during the Vintage years, it was rather less sure-footed.

Wolseley

Following the Kaiser War, Wolseley had really struggled to find its niche in the market, with the result that it was overlooked and ignored by most car-buyers. The inevitable happened in 1926 when the Birmingham company was declared bankrupt. William Morris subsequently acquired it as a personal investment, with a view to having an upmarket companion to his eponymous cars.

What followed were plans for an array of sixes and eights, to be sold at mid-market prices despite demand for a mid-market eight being virtually non-existent. Hillman attempted one around the same time, and soon gave up on it. Wolseley persevered, building eights in both 21/60hp and colossal 32/80hp guises, and found very few takers.

With few built in the first place, survivors are today very thin on the ground. Zack Stiling samples a unique 21/60hp all-weather coupé and unravels the events of Wolseley’s ever so bold, but equally misguided, venture in the February issue of The Automobile, on sale now.

Words by Zack Stiling. Photographs by Reverendpixel.

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