Description
Lea-Francis was a small high quality
British manufacturing company which
initially focussed on upmarket bicycles,
motor cycles and later car production. It
was relatively small compared to its main
contemporary rival, Alvis but was often
experimental and highly innovative. It was
particularly successful with some of its
sporting models in the 1920s, for
example the supercharged Hyper which
won the 1928 Ulster TT against major
marques. Brian Sewell described a Lea-
Francis as a ‘Bentley for the poor of
Cheltenham’.
My car, registration number UN 3127 is a
two-seater P-Type with chassis number
13913 and engine number 9422. The P-
Type was first introduced in 1927 with an
entirely new longer wider chassis
developed by Charles Van Eugen giving
better ride quality and road holding. UN
3127 has the rare and more sporty twin-
port Brooklands type of Meadows 4ED
engine compared to the standard P-
Types with single port 4ED engines.
The car was first registered on 4th
December 1929 to David Curwen who
kept the car for more than 35 years. It
had only two more owners until 2006. In
2013 it went to the owner of Oily Motor
Museum in Porlock and I purchased it
shortly after that.
In 2018 Jeremy Brewster completed a full
engine rebuild including crankcase, twin
port heads and raised compression ratio
resulting in estimated 70 brake horse
power. The body and trim have also been restored and painted in Burgundy.
